A couple of months ago Surfer Boy and I sold some industrial letters, that SB had salvaged, on ebay. A guy in Sydney bought them and sent a courier truck down to Melbourne to pick them up. All good. Another successful ebay transaction. (and in case you're interested, we sold them for about $80 each)
Today I was doing a bit of web surfing and came across a website for a shop in Sydney that sells industrial furniture, cool bric a brac etc. Imagine my surprise when I realised the industrial letters I was looking at were in fact the ones we had sold! Imagine my even greater surprise when I saw they were selling them for $500.00 each!!! Good on them - I hope they do well with them, - the part that REALLY surprised me was they way they were advertised. Our industrial letters from MELBOURNE, made in the late 80's to early 90's were described thus...
Fantastic Vintage box frame letters. Found in England circa 1950's.
$500 each
It pissed me off so much that they had blatantly bullshitted that I sent them a very polite email correcting the origins of the letters so that they could update their information!
I don't mind if they inflate the price, but I do mind if they lie about where they came from to make them sound more exotic. The other problem is I now don't trust any of their descriptions and wonder how many other supposedly vintage pieces are in fact made last year in some factory in Indo.
SPRUNG! (Wonder if they'll change them??)
