Fantasy Paratrooper Knife? And eBay hypocrisy...

[Doppelgänger]

Let me preface by saying that the people who run eBay are lying sacks of you know what... all this "anti gun" posturing "you can sell no part of a firearm that can be used to make it fire", while people sell AR trigger groups, barrels, etc, as well as full auto instructions, by the hundreds daily, the thousands, the millions... and of course they get their nice big fat selling fees right off the top. Me, I posted a flippin scope that goes on an AR with a carry handle, and a couple rail items, truly within any kind of compliance, and had the ad pulled, along with a stern verbal warning and a black mark on your record which take a while to clear.

Then comes the issue of 3rd Reich stuff, I've posted a couple truly inoffensive items, only to have them pulled, along with another stern warning, and now my "compliance rating" is "low"...

On any given day, there are thousands of 3rd Reich items on eBay, including as we well know... lots of fakes. This doesn't seem to bother eBay in the least, they still get a cut right off the top, even though they posture on about "offensive items", and "counterfeit items"... and they will tell you in person when talking to a "rep" (teenage girl in a third world country with poor command of the English language), that "you are supposed to turn in any item you see that "violates the rules", and so in other words we the people are probably the ones responsible for the un-allowed items that do go on, the fake items that go through a nine day auction process, seemingly unscathed and un-caught by eBay Draconian laws...

So, what am I going on about here?

It's a knife full of ∫∫ symbols (and how offensive that was!) which was probably a fake, which I put a watch on, and sold for nearly $450 shipped. Of course, then it must be real, all of the collectors who pay big bucks for stuff certainly know better, and who am I (with my truly limited knowledge) to even dare raise the shadow of a doubt?

I'm about to dump it from my watched items list, and every time I see it I feel like I should post it here, which I had intended on doing while the listing was active, but was sort of too disgusted to waste the time...

And Larry, feel free to move this to the fakes thread after perusal here, as in my mind this is/was undoubtably a fake item. But again, what do I really know?

A few pics of the knife, where thankfully the seller spared us any of the usual provenance stories...







And then a link to the listing,

Vintage German WW2 Folding Paratrooper Knife Waffen Eickhorn | eBay ; sold for $430!


PS, if it turns out to be real, I'll promptly eat all my words ;-)

[rbminis]

My opinion is that only the fakes stay on e-bay, most original items are pulled.
And, yes, this is a fake.
Ralph.

[Sir Payne]

These are pure fantasy knives.

In regards to eBay. They were sued by France a few years back because they allowed TR items to be listed and sold to French members. That is why they changed their policy and no longer allow any items bearing "offensive" symbols.

[bigmacglenn]

Total Fake...These have been around for years. I'm amazed people would think this is an authentic item...
cheers, Glenn

[Frundsberg]

A fantasy item, never existed. As I have heared, it is from the 1970-ies.

[maximus71]

This is a well known fake/fantasy item. I believe ebay only allows swastika symbols on coins and stamps. Sure some stuff gets through since thousands of items get posted everyday, they catch what they can, You can argue the point that they allow japanese flags for sale but not TR and so on but they set the rules and nobody is forced to buy or sell on there, lots of other places to buy or sell that allow anything so its not worth the time getting frustrating over things we cant control. Usually when something good comes up for bid, such as a real TR dagger, the person selling it will get 20 private messeges from greedy dealers looking to buy it out on the cheap and flip it for profit before it ends, its a world of money hungry sharks leaving someone like myself little or no chance to find a deal on ebay, but its a great place to buy household items lol

[big ned]

A Nice noggin of mature Cheddar and an apple to go with it.... The world is yer lobster!

[Sir Payne]

Please pardon my blasphemy, but I like eBay. Most of the items in my collection are from there. There are a lot of trustworthy sellers on eBay, and a lot of good original items. Most of the prices are lower than dealer's prices, and it's a great place to sell as well. I know we all disagree with the policies on TR items, and some of us have had bad experiences with certain sellers, but I don't think that constitutes grounds to insult the website. The eBay and PayPal fees are reasonable in my opinion. Would you rather give away 20% of your profit to a dealer or 10% to eBay/paypal? Not to mention that eBay has a much larger clientele. Fakes? There are fakes on renowned dealer's websites just like there are on eBay. And I don't mean to sound harsh, but eBay is only dangerous to stupid people, who don't do their homework before they buy. The point is, eBay is a great site for collectors who know what they are doing. Despite the bad things, which we always talk about on here, the site has a lot of good things going on.

[Doppelgänger]

Don't get me wrong, I still like some things about eBay... I've been buying and selling there since '02 with (1674) 100% positive feedback. I just don't like hypocrisy in any form... and they actually should have the pants sued off of them for a variety of reasons. But nobody has the guts in this day and age (I mean us sellers), and it's mindblowing as well that there isn't some real competition, but that's the way it stands.

Here's one detail about eBay, just one, that is nutty, and "that's just the way it is". If I sell you a helmet, and the shipping is $15, they'll charge me $1.5 "fee" on the shipping amount. Why? "To keep shipping prices low"... Actually now that eBay has this fee, I'm going to charge you $20 to ship the helmet because they're taking out this fee. It's a ripoff, plain and simple, and I have yet to run into somebody who doesn't get that, or who likes the fee, or who thinks it's a good idea, or who thinks it's lowered shipping prices on eBay.

Ands when you look at end of the month statement, like one I just got, where you owe eBay $280... and you go to the statement and see these "shipping amount fees", you can't help but shake your head in disbelief that they can actually get away with this.

That being said... I've gotten oodles of righteous TR items on eBay, one should have one hitting my mailbox this week. Not to offend anyone else, but I'm not crazy about buying from dealers, unless it's a great deal. The SD M42 I scored on eBay would have cost me twice that much from a dealer, although that transaction had more than it's share of good luck associated with it.

For all it's faults, eBay is still unique. It's been a love/hate relationship for me, as I'm sure it's been for many others.

Back to the knife, I'm glad to hear people's input on it, I was 100% sure it was a fantasy item, and that it would go for that much $$$... crazy ;-)