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Roseville Pottery
American Art Pottery
Modern Art Pottery
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On the Net: July/August 2003
The phrase “a picture is worth a 1000 words” is seldom truer than in the world of online art pottery buying and selling. From the buyer’s perspective, good quality photos are a prerequisite to any purchase. Unlike the show or auction venue, where items are able to be thoroughly inspected for damage, repairs or factory flaws, in the online world you are at the mercy of the seller to present an accurate representation of the item for sale as it relates to such issues as mold, color, crazing, factory flaws, damage and repairs. As a seller, by presenting the best quality digital photos possible, you can enhance your credibility with customers as well as ensure you realize maximum value for your items. A recently introduced eBook, Snappy Auction Photos: The Online Auction Seller’s Guide to Digital Photography by David Steiner of AuctionBytes.com offers sellers an easy to read introduction to the world of online photography. This eBook provides information on the basics of selecting a digital camera, taking quality images, as well as dealing with specific issues such as hot spots and overexposure in your photos. This inexpensive and handy reference guide is available for download at Amazon and other online bookstores. Art pottery collectors now have another online option to the fixed price store or auction method for buying and selling. Tias.com has started a new online classified ads service where sellers can list individual items without opening a web storefront. Sellers can list their items for one month with up to a 90-word description and 4 photos. Items listed for sale on the new service will also be listed online in Tias.com, Yahoo! Classifieds, Froogle.com, and the Collectors Newsletter. Prices ranges from $10 to $25 per item depending on the listing type selected. With the continued reduction in quality pottery available on eBay, it will be interesting to see if this venue can become a viable online trading method for art pottery buyers and sellers. Fictitious emails appearing to be coming from eBay, Paypal and other related services continue to circulate the online community. We normally receive 5 or 6 each week. These hoax emails typically will state in some manner that there is a problem with your account and you need to update your account information through links provided in the email. When unsuspecting users click the links provided in the emails they are taken to fake web pages that in many cases are almost exact replicas of the real website. These fake pages will then request such sensitive information as your account number, password, social security number, and credit card information. In order to protect yourself, be sure to never use an email to access any web-based service. Both eBay and Paypal have policies stating they do not request sensitive information through email. When accessing your account information be sure to do so only by first accessing the home page of the particular website such as eBay or PayPal. You can then safely navigate to the appropriate area of the website to update your information as necessary. On a related issue, Auction Stealer, a widely used bid sniper service for eBay auctions recently reported that the account information of some users, specifically eBay passwords, were compromised during an attack on their systems. Auction Stealer recommended that all their users change eBay passwords. To avoid this potentially damaging situation, be sure to use a different password for each of your Internet based accounts. As an additional step, you should always review the privacy policy of any website that is offering you goods or services to verify specifically how your sensitive information is gathered and protected. Latest numbers of ongoing pottery auctions listed on eBay as of June 2003 is as follows: Prices realized from recent pottery sales on eBay. Items are in mint condition unless noted otherwise. If you have suggestions or comments for upcoming issues please email me at gregmy@justartpottery.com.
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