Split Top Roubo Workbench For Sale


dustinsmith

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My apologies for wanting to get the most money possible for something that I don't want to sell in the first place. I think I was very polite when I explained my position and reasoning to you when we talked on the phone Monday night. I think it's rude and sophomoric of you to come back to the forum and try to paint me to be a bad guy because I didn't accept your offer.

Dustin

Ummmmmm yeeaahhhhh. I really don't think that was how Steve intended that post to be taken.
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Cool heads please. There was no value laden language making Steve's comment derogatory. It was only taken as a statement of your position. The following comments were support and justification. Steve's comment also helps others to see that a bid of less than $1,600 is a waste of time. There is no harm done here.

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Steve's comment also helps others to see that a bid of less than $1,600 is a waste of time. There is no harm done here.

 

I don't think you understand how a "no reserve" auction works, which is what this is. The current bid is $910 and the auction ends Friday night. If no one else bids, the bench sells for $910. Period. It doesn't matter how much I want to get for the bench -- it sells to the highest bidder for their high bid, whatever that ends up being.

 

Dustin

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I don't think anyone attempted to paint you as a bad guy.

You posted an eBay link with an opening bid at $900. Two people on this forum who live locally made you an offer, based on the link you posted. I offered the asking bid price, and you turned it down and asked me to bid on it. Steve offered another $700 on top of my offer. Which by the way, was at a time your auction had zero bids. You turned that down. Both of us were willing to take it off your hands in less than 24 hours. Particularly without you having to cut eBay in on your sale price.

Given the detail in your original post I think most of us were under the impression that you were looking to possibly sell your bench to someone on this forum, not to only generate interest or buzz regarding your eBay listing, or to have us get in a bidding war with each other.

Steve said he thinks you were going for the biggest possible deal. That's obviously the case. And given the fact that you weren't willing to accept either of our offers , why would anyone believe you would honor the winner of the eBay auction if it ended at less than $1600.

As for your opinion that he is rude and sophomoric, I assure you you're in the minority.

Enjoy Los Angeles, you'll fit right in.

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Please help us understand why you refused Steve's offer then? This actually ruins what good view of the interaction I had and not on his end. That said, I am willing to hear you out. Did you simply list before his offer?

 

I didn't necessarily refuse Steve's $1600 offer -- I simply asked him to place a bid on the eBay auction. Steve didn't want to bid on it, he wanted to come buy it right away for $1600. I kindly said no thanks, that I couldn't do that -- the auction was already underway. Steve originally found out I was selling the bench by reading my original post, wherein I was hoping to generate bids on the auction (I doubt people search for "Split Top Roubo" on eBay very often). I simply wanted to see how the auction turned out rather than take a shot in the dark at an asking price.

 

I feel my reasoning for putting something like this up for auction, rather than simply naming an asking price and selling it outright (like via Craigslist or something like that) is that I really have no way of knowing what this bench is worth beyond the materials cost. One can add up the materials costs pretty easily and come up with about $1600 needed to buy the materials/hardware/misc to build this bench. But how much money do I want to charge for the two months' worth of weekends that I spent building this bench? What kind of asking price do I put on something that I really, really, REALLY don't want to sell in the first place? Keep in mind I'm only selling my woodshop because I'm literally moving across the country in five weeks (Georgia to California).

 

I felt like an eBay auction would allow the market to tell me what the bench is worth, regardless of what I or anyone else thinks it's worth.

 

I just want to get the most possible for my baby, that's all. I don't think that's such a bad thing, I think it's what you all would want to if you were in my position.

 

Dustin

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To be a little more technical Dustin, you did not state in your ebay listing that you also have the bench for sale locally(outside ebay) and reserve the right to end the auction early. So technically, if you sold the bench outside the ebay auction you would be breaking a binding agreement you currently have with ebay. They be pissed when they don't get their cut. 

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That helps. I can understand both sides better this way. I don't find eBay to be the best way to find cash value for things that don't normally sell there but your reasoning makes sense. I also stray into eBay land to purchase much less than I used to. Just know that I never took Steve's comment as positive or negative, just explanatory.

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That's not true, Freddie...you can end a listing anytime you like.  It's bad etiquette and people get pissed off...but it's not a "binding contract" until the auction ends with a winning bidder.  And from the perspective of a professional online seller...there's really no "binding contract" EVER, since buyers who just decide not to pay can do so with very little consequence.  Trust me, it's pandemic.

 

I can't blame you Dustin for wanting to get top dollar for your bench...and realistically you're gonna get hosed no matter what because of all the love labor you put into it and won't get back out.  But you might have made it clearer with your original post that you weren't interested in offers outside of ebay.  I think your posting here made people think you were pursuing multiple venues of sale.  At least that's how I took it.

 

So it's resolved and let's move on.  Good luck to all interested parties.  No point in public bickering.

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That's not true, Freddie...you can end a listing anytime you like.  It's bad etiquette and people get pissed off...but it's not a "binding contract" until the auction ends with a winning bidder.

 

Shut up Eric!  :P

 

Binding contract, bad choice of words, but bad juju for your future ebay endeavors, hell yeah!

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Steve said he thinks you were going for the biggest possible deal. That's obviously the case. And given the fact that you weren't willing to accept either of our offers , why would anyone believe you would honor the winner of the eBay auction if it ended at less than $1600.

Enjoy Los Angeles, you'll fit right in.

 

I'm not here to prove to you that I'm an honest eBayer, but feel free to take a look at my feedback on eBay left from the previous buyers of my woodshop tools. Also note that not a single one of those auctions ever had a "reserve" price -- every one of those tools sold to the high bidder, at whatever the high bid ended up being, period. The Festool Domino, all of the Lie-Nielsen planes, the Lie-Nielsen chisel sets -- all of it. I didn't want to sell any of that stuff, either -- but I did and both the buyer and I got a fair deal.

 

I'm hoping to do the same with this bench -- that's all.

 

 

Dustin

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Amen

 

Steve,

 

No hard feelings by any means. Maybe I did read too much into your posts, who knows. It's hard to read intent in text, so my apologies if I sounded harsh, too.

 

And my offer still stands, too -- put in a bid on the bench and you might get it for $930 instead of $1600! ;)

 

Dustin

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