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by  Linda Romberg
  Dec 2005
SHAWNEE TALES 
Nov 2005
  With the holidays coming up we should be  seeing a lot more listings for good pieces on Ebay although with the soft  prices, it may affect the number of listings.

  This has been a very  frustrating month for Doug and I trying to stay on top of the fake listings -  more information is posted on the site regarding the latest barrage of  listings.  Take note, we have several sellers out of KY that continue to  list very suspicious pieces - currently there is an "alleged" vintage gold trim  Smiley water pitcher that miraculously also has a bug on it's
forehead - very  similar to the creamer a while back by ANOTHER SELLER ALSO in the same vicinity of KY.  Take note - the eyelids have no line decoration on this pieces -  the toe nails are gold and the air brushing and cheeks are not right.  Yet  this particular seller has excellent feedback and also has a lot of vintage  pieces in other cookie jars and a lot of black memorabilia - unfortunately I am  not an expert on that so cannot detect if any of them are repros or fakes.   Also suddenly there are several Jo clown fakes being listed - note the multi  colored ball on the nose of the seal on one and missing telltale number 12  etched in the mold of the base.  Also a Puss N Boots cookie jar that is  scary for a novice collector and could fool others as well.  Hope
Doug can  insert some of the pictures here but do check his web site to stay current.
The full page
  I am enclosing a letter in response to another complaint to Bill Cobb at Ebay - they continue to suggest they care but in fact with no copyright infringement violation, we are up a creek - mind you, this excludes all antique pottery from any defunct company from being authenticated in their  eyes - they are not willing to work with cookie jar collectors or put together any group to overseeany of the fraud.  it is too profitable for them to  pull the auctions. Please, for those of you who feel strongly about this, continue to protest to Ebay...............................................
"Hello,

Thank you for contacting Bill.  My name is Marley and Bill has asked that I respond and address your concerns.

I would like to assure you that eBay  is also very concerned with the listing of counterfeit Shawnee on the site.  We take these matters seriously and we work closely with our buyers, sellers  and members of independent third party organizations to address this  issue.

As you know, eBay does not inspected items you may have listed.  Nor do we have enough information about certain items to make any judgment  as to whether it is authorized. In addition, eBay is not an expert in the  rights of any third parties. As a result, we are not in a position to 
make a judgment as to whether the items listed are authorized or legal.
 
We are also not in a position to tell members how to describe any item for listing.

Please remember that, although we are commonly referred  to as an online auction web site, we are not a traditional auction house.  Instead, our site acts as a venue to allow anyone to offer, sell, and buy  just about anything, at anytime, from anywhere, in a variety of formats,  including a fixed price format and an auction-style format commonly referred  to as an "online auction."

However, we have taken necessary steps to  ensure we have experts of certain items searching the site.

We  developed our VeRO program (Verified Rights Owner) for situations like  this.  When Rights Owners join this program, they have access to report  any items they feel may infringe on there Copyright or Trademark.When we  receive these request from the Verified Rights Owner we remove the alleged infringing items off eBay.

At this time the best way to remove items you  feel are counterfeit or fake, is to contact the rights owner of the alleged  infringing items. If the rights owner is not a member of our VeRO  program we encourage you to have them contact us.

For more information  about infringing items and eBay's VeRO Program, please  visit:

http://pages.ebay.com/help/community/vero-program.html

I  hope this message helps with any concerns your have regarding any illegal  items being sold on eBay.  Please feel free to reply to this email with  any further questions.

Best Regards,

Marley
VeRO Team
eBay  Trust & Safety"

Original Message  Follows:
-------------------------

  For those of you in the  Florida area or nearby states with plans to travel to Florida - here is a link  to the Renningers show upcoming - thanks David for sharing

http://www.renningersflorida.com/extrav/extravaganzas.htm  

  Another collector was able to match up the gold clover bud sets  recently - found parts of them on Ebay and the others at a local flea market -  always fun to match up a pair - inserted is a picture of the beautiful sets of  shakers.
The larger set especially is EXTREMELY RARE - what a treasure to  have!!!!
  There was a  raspberry jar listed last week on Ebay - the apple decoration over the raised  clover bud mold - it was listed as a clover bud so many people didn't realize  the rarity of it but still it sold for over $500 - a bargain in my  opinion.  When the price started to climb I had several emails inquiring as  to why - I wrote a column back in 2004 about the clover bud vs apple vs 
raspberry.

  A Link to that column is below for those of you that  aren't sure about the
differences

http://shawneepottery.com/spottery/news/v1i10/tales.htm

  You  can also access the archives of the original newsletters back to January
2003  at

http://shawneepottery.com/spottery/News/newsarc.htm

"All of these private listings as  Shawnee are fakes - how can you supportthese sellers and give them Power  Seller status - you are allowing the market to be destroyed by  permitting all these reproductions to be falsely listed.
I write a  newsletter online and am constantly hearing from buyers who havebeen cheated by these unethical sellers and yet you continue to permit these  fraudulent auctions.  Maybe collectors need to seriously consider a  class action suit to recoup monies lost at Ebay's continued support of  these sellers.
Click here: eBay Seller: ole mill creek: Pottery China,  Housewares Kitchenware items on eBay.com"

  Another interesting couple of listings worth looking at - one by a Shawnee collector and another by someone who got stung on a fake LRRH - wonder how long before Ebay pulls these listings!!!  It is giving shoppers a lot of information and referring them to Doug's web site - getting a lot of responses from it. 

Items  #7368022960  and  #6231316063

  With  everything happening on Ebay with the frauds we have learned that purchases  through Ebay when Pay Pal is used are able to be disputed and several collectors  have collected refunds when the seller does not honor the condition or  authenticity of the item - this may be the only way we can hold Ebay accountable  for the fake auctions - if we hit their bank account, they may
actually take  action to prevent these auctions!
Be observant to details - there is an  auction listing right now that is very suspicious - take note that it appears to  be a plain Smiley water pitcher doctored to be gold and has a fly on the  forehead - seller has not responded to requests and is in the same vicinity as  other sellers who are coming up with way too much unusual and rare pieces - and  buyers are jumping in and paying
way too much!!!!  BUYER  BEWARE!!!!!

  GOLD SMILEY WATER PITCHER WITH BUG -  Do the word  search as we cannot list specific sellers on select items - it isn't the same as  the sellers of hoards of repros and fakes.
Until next month,

HAPPY  HOLIDAYS!

Lin        linromb@aol.com
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