Screwed by ebay

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Modern Mueller stones aren't actually Thuringian Material. The ones I've tried were muddy and nowhere near as fine as original material (I've owned hundreds of vintage Thuringians). Be careful a LOT of sellers resell them as "Thuringians". It's a big part of why the green and yellow green Thuringians are so much more valuable/expensive... because there's no chance they're mistaken for a Mueller (or similar Dark blue slate). And there's the impression they tend to be finer and/or softer; which most people prefer.
Fifteen years back when people in the States discovered Mueller, they had a VERY tiny supply of actual Thuringian. It was mostly 4"x1" with a handful of larger stuff. The larger stuff sold out almost instantly. 4" stones lasted a few months... and then a few webstores bought it out (was priced ~$10-15 from Mueller) and sold it for $100+ per piece. Now all they sell is their "German Whetstone" which THEY sell as "From a few miles away from the Thuringian Mines". But resellers love selling as "Thuringian". They also sell them for like $20 for an 8x2" (At least that's what they were 15 yrs ago, but you gotta import from Germany), but resellers ask $50, $100, etc.

There's a guy who used to frequent shaving/razor forums who lived near the mines and talked them into letting him creep in the mines and find scrap pieces that got left behind when they were active. He's the only source of "modern" Thuringian material. I tried a couple pieces and it was the real deal. His name's Peter and he used to have a storefront; but his supply might have dried up by now. I think the storefront was at Thuringianhones.de . Looks like he just has one Thuri up right now and it's being sold as a combo with a big honkin razor.




Modern Coticules all come from a mine/co called Ardennes Coticule. I personally prefer old stones as I've found some really exceptional examples; but Ardennes does still mine good quality ones; especially if you detail what vein you want from them (certain veins; particularly La Veinette and Les Latneuses are more desirable/consistent), but they don't always have those veins available. Real drawback to Ardennes is that frankly, vintage stones are usually cheaper if they aren't Labeled (Old Rock, Salm, etc) or unusual examples with lots of patterning. You can get an 8x2" vintage coticule from time to time in the $100-150 range on eBay... That's a $300+ rock from Ardennes.


I have one high grit (13k Sigma power) synth; but it's the only one. I tried Naniwas, Shapton (GS and pro), that 20k Goku thing that a lot of razor guys love. They all did basically the same thing for me and I liked the Sigma best. But it doesn't see much use. I'll go to a natural stone 100+ times for every time I break the synth out.

The high end synth most used by razor guys these days seems to be balsa stropping on ultra-refined abrasive dust from 1 mu down to 0.1 mu. There's a guy who came up with a process/technique that took off as an affordable way for new straight shavers to get good results with a pretty easy to teach/describe technique. There are still guys that use things like glass-stones and the 20k Goku; but based on forum discussions feels those are much less common than balsa stropping or any number of natural stone finishers (Jnat, Thuri, Arkansas, Coti, etc).
 
I cant imagine you cant get refund through Ebay. Sellers are expendable as far is Ebay is concerned. They will always take care of the buyer regardless in my experience. I Have bought and sold on Ebay for over 20 years , have seen lots of changes. I have come to the point now that having to give them access to a bank account, social security number, then have to document everything I sell and deal with the 1099 K form just isn't worth the trouble for getting rid of excess stuff I have around , most of which usually sells for less that what I paid for it. I buy a lot less on Ebay now than I used to. It's frustrating try to find something when a great deal of the search results are for example cheap Junk that says "fits ATK605 " fits 1928 Dodge" It's gotten really hard to find parts unless one does a very specific search.
 
I quit selling on eVilBay years ago, when I had to pay for a buyer's return shipping, after eVilbay said everything was fine with my description edit, the seller went by the title and read nothing else about an iPhone I was selling. I sold the same phone on Craigslist, which I am getting tired of too.

I saw the many listings, blind :cool:crap shoot, I never touch junk💔, a seller that "plays dumb":crazy2:.
You are clearly a welcome exit from eBay. Knuckleheads, with keyboards, and a denial complex have no place anywhere but on truth social......
 
says " fits 1928 Dodge"
Bro don't you know that EVERY single LED headlight known can be adapted to fit that bucket? :laughing:

Sometimes it goes the other way, and all those "fits Hardley Skreet Udder Glyde" is really just a 6024 LED headlight with a stupid bracket that won't fit your machine. Most of the cool aesthetic ones have poor beam shape.
3 days later... Oh! It's just a 6024!
Who is big enough to make a 100% legit unit? Osram. Easy.

More nonsense with saved ebay searches, nice to see the saved search functions, but they're all chain :rolleyes:
 
I sold a non-working electric chain saw on Ebay many years ago for $0.01, one lousy penny. In the description I said" I plugged it in and it made no noise". I thought anyone with a bit of common sense would see my humor, sadly I was wrong.
 
I have bought some junk on ebay, sent it back and always got full credit. Recently I had my usps lady bring a package to my house that she found at another mailbox. Said she saw it there a few days before and seeing who it belonged to she brought it to my porch. It was shipped UPS. She wasnt the person that delivered it to wrong address. Thing is I dont know why the neighbor didnt at least call me to tell me its was there. Heck, I could have seen it from my back porch if I had of been looking for it. I have grown reliant on internet sales for a lot of my purchases. Sometimes ebay, lots of Amazon, wife just loves walmart, but the biggest scam I had was a company out of Indiana selling new equipment. Machine cost was over $5k. It didnt arrive when it was supposed to and after several phone calls and several months, and being told it was being shipped. I made the one call that got their attention. That call was to the 'attoney generals office of the state of indiana. The machine got shipped real fast then. The sellers where taken to court and fined $100k each, (husband and wife owned company), made them stop doing business on the internet. They shut down their website, but resumed doing business under a different name. I actually found their new wesite by accident and it was a mirror copy of the original, just changed the name. I simply called the Attorney General office and reported them and got that site shut down too.
 
I ordered an item from ebay last week and never received it although the tracking said it was delivered to my front porch. My living room is near my porch with a big window so I can see the mail being delivered which it wasn't. Besides that, the parcel should have fit in my mailbox, no need to put it on the porch. I'll see what the Post Office says about it tomorrow.
 
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