Shoddy Ebay Stuff

 I was quite lucky in that I discovered eBay quite early on, about 2001 perhaps. At that time there were some genuine bargains to be had. I remember getting both the Stiff America MIB and Last Supper posters for about £30 for the two. There was loads of other stuff too, it was great, not to mention exiting when the clock ran down to the last minutes! Every so often, although increasingly infrequently, I dip in and have a look at the Stranglers in music memorabilia. Sadly, for the last few years it seems that only about 20% of listings related to genuine memorabilia. It is shocking how much badly produced reproduction stuff is on there. Even worse than the repro stuff are the items that have been cobbled together by someone on a computer. It may be that the sellers are not trying to pass this stuff off as genuine (the price gives that away) but the items are lazy, devoid of thought and just out to make a quick buck... and seemingly people are buying the stuff.

Here's an example that I saw tonight.

No need for answers on a postcard to reveal the anomaly here! No need for a watermark here to safeguard the image from copiers!

Thankfully, the proliferation of bootlegs for sale on eBay has died down. I hate to see that someone has forked out £15 for something that is freely available online... we left that kind of thing behind in Camden High Street 25 or more years ago!