Consignments-with-us Selling fakes

[Bruce Pennington]

LOTS of fakes on fleaby right now.  But a repeat offender is Consignments-with-us.  I've send him a message on 2 of his sales.  We'll see how he replies.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/333980029498?hash=item4dc2c2d23a:g:nRwAAOSwKBBgih5l

and

https://www.ebay.com/itm/233987298807?hash=item367abad5f7:g:qmIAAOSwzf9giiEx

[uwe]

Any reaction, Bruce?

[Bruce Pennington]

Yes, he responded yesterday (from one of my messages, don't know which one), and said he'd notify the owner.  I just checked and he hasn't modified or removed the sale pages of either one, though.

[ribendao]

I almost bid on some 20th century Chinese swords from them a few months ago. Thankfully one of the members here advised me against it before I opened my wallet.

[AntiquarianCat]

It looks like it sold and they gave someone a shoddy fake advertised as real despite knowing full well they were selling a fake, absolutely disgraceful behavior. 
 

Forum Ancient Coins has a notorious fake sellers list that big eBay sellers can earn their way into if they repeatedly and knowingly sell counterfeits. I wonder if people like this one would deserve to be included in a similar list. It certainly is needed for ancient coins since many fraudsters have quite good eBay ratings and would otherwise get away with it if not called out. It seems like that’s the case with swords too.

[b.hennick]

Be careful of what you can prove or not prove. People in some countries are very fast to sue. 

[AntiquarianCat]

Yes you are right, and that’s why it would be a mistake to drag this forum into that battle. I should have thought of that. 
 

That said angry blacklisted eBay sellers would constantly charge into Ancient Coins about how they were being “slandered”, or write letters, and in turn were handed dossiers documenting all the patently fake coins they sold as legitimate. Perhaps it’s because Ancient Coins is based in the states and if your opinion is credible enough it’s something they can’t sue for here (and we have anti libel tourism laws) why they could get away with a blacklist.

[Sunny]

Agreed ...I even gave them a heads up being very polite as to not make the mistake of a new hobbyist making the wrong decision.

You can't tell any of those guys though.

I usually tell them I wouldn't take that sword for $200 free shipping just as to be as honest and direct as possible yet somehow they think I'm still trying to work out some angle to rip them off.

I can't stand one of the guys on Ebay in the Military listings selling everything as a WW2 family ancestor sword.

One of the swords isn''t even signed.

Bat s**t crazy I tell you.

[AntiquarianCat]

Hello Steve, I suppose all I could think of doing is to screen capture and document sellers who repeatedly have counterfeits they try and sell as legitimate. Hopefully ebayers will look up the reputation of who their seller is and will be put off by a pattern of fraud.

I have tried to warn sellers when they’re selling bogus items but they usually don’t listen, I assume they already know and chose to pass it off to someone else either way.

[Kolekt-To]

On 6/26/2021 at 12:34 PM, Steven Edmund said:

Agreed ...I even gave them a heads up being very polite as to not make the mistake of a new hobbyist making the wrong decision.

You can't tell any of those guys though.

I usually tell them I wouldn't take that sword for $200 free shipping just as to be as honest and direct as possible yet somehow they think I'm still trying to work out some angle to rip them off.

I can't stand one of the guys on Ebay in the Military listings selling everything as a WW2 family ancestor sword.

One of the swords isn''t even signed.

Bat s**t crazy I tell you.

Ah yes, the infamous "Monkey", The Samurai that is! "Very Rare", "Ancestral blade", "Special Pilot's sword", etc. He also has a YouTube channel - "Please visit my eBay store!". And his prices are completely out of the park! Hard to believe he's still around and sells anything. But, I suppose there's enough well-funded, unsuspecting newbies out there to sustain his business. Sad!

[AntiquarianCat]

Honestly though, a sword being unsigned (mumei) is the least of Monkey’s problems. Tons of pre modern nihonto are mumei, especially o-suriage koto pieces, so if you want to buy those cheap you have to have some tolerance for mumei. The bonus is it avoids gimei (likely with an unpaperred signed blade) too, so so long as it’s a good sword in decent polish, a shinsa will only bring good news vs an unpapered mei sword that could turn out gimei and unpaperable. A lot of very high end dealers sell mumei koto swords that are still otherwise excellent (some even are Juyo) so there’s no shame in owning or selling an old sword that lost a signature.

 

No my problem with Samurai Monkey is he blatantly lies about what his swords are: most of his “family swords” and gendai are obvious oil tempered showato, you can tell by their dark oil quench stains above the hamon and complete lack of activities. I think some might have had their arsenal stamps tampered with. So he really is pushing nearly worthless non traditional swords as traditionally made family blades, beware.

 

The few swords he has that look to be genuine family blades are either at ridiculous high four figure prices for a sword in not great condition, or lower prices but the sword is so ravaged and has had its geometry so compromised that I doubt it’s salvageable, much less worth its price. So far, haven’t seen anything Monkey sells that’s worth it’s price.

[Brian]

It has been conclusively proven than he takes unsigned flags and fakes the inscriptions on them to sell at high prices. 100% Conclusive proof.
That is enough to tell you what type of seller he is.