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noble knight games ebay practices
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Mordenkainen
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Posted: Sun Aug 01, 2021 3:13 pm

I'm curious what this group thinks of noble knight games - particularly in regards to their selling practices on eBay.

I've been very surprised and disappointed to see a purveyor of expensive, high end collectibles post so many listings with a boiler plate disclaimer that says "Please review the condition and any condition notes for the exact condition of this item. All pictures are stock photos. The condition of the item you will receive is ___________. Our grading system is listed below for your perusal"

In other words, despite the huge HTML description page full of text, the only information you're getting about the item being offered is a single terse sentence with someone's assessment of it's overall condition with no explanation as to what the flaws might be. Corners? Staple rust? Writing? Odors? Creases? Tears? Missing pages? None of this information is provided. The ratio between the quantity of text and the information therein is the lowest I've ever seen - and this is a major vendor in the rpg collectible world?

Here's an example of what I mean:

** eBay auction listing blocked. Please enable cookies in your browser for this site and for eBay! **

Every listing is like this, including some in the 4 digit price range.

In the past i have emailed and requested photos and details of the specific item being sold - which they provided several days later. I can hardly believe this is how they do business online. Am I crazy?

red_bus
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Posted: Sun Aug 01, 2021 4:31 pm

Like yourself when I am thinking about buying anything from them (rarely now), I have asked questions and they have generally been pretty nice. They are also normally up for a discount as well. I suspect that the (high end) collectible market is just a small portion of their overal revenue so its just not a priority for them.

Let's go fly a kite
Up to the highest height!

grubbiv
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Posted: Sun Aug 01, 2021 4:50 pm

It looks like for this item you can go to their site and get the actual pictures: Egg of the Phoenix, The - AD&D 1st Ed - Noble Knight Games

Despite the stock images and high prices, I bought a lot of stuff from them. I was always happy with stuff that in was in EX or FN condition.

Sir Kill Alot
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Posted: Sun Aug 01, 2021 4:59 pm

Back in the day (when Aaron sold stuff through his AOL account), I bought so much off him, I swear I paid for him to get his storefront off the ground. I have never had a bad dealing with him. Now mind you that was 20+ years ago. I am not one for 'stock' photos of anything but with the amount of business he is doing, he would probably spend a good portion of his day snapping and uploading images. With anything on eBay or anywhere for that matter it is always buyer beware. With his stuff being on the expensive side (what isn't these days), I would trust him to do right with my money.

-SKA

stratochamp
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Posted: Sun Aug 01, 2021 5:14 pm

Mordenkainen wrote in noble knight games ebay practices:I'm curious what this group thinks of noble knight games - particularly in regards to their selling practices on eBay.

I've been very surprised and disappointed to see a purveyor of expensive, high end collectibles post so many listings with a boiler plate disclaimer that says "Please review the condition and any condition notes for the exact condition of this item. All pictures are stock photos. The condition of the item you will receive is ___________. Our grading system is listed below for your perusal"

In other words, despite the huge HTML description page full of text, the only information you're getting about the item being offered is a single terse sentence with someone's assessment of it's overall condition with no explanation as to what the flaws might be. Corners? Staple rust? Writing? Odors? Creases? Tears? Missing pages? None of this information is provided. The ratio between the quantity of text and the information therein is the lowest I've ever seen - and this is a major vendor in the rpg collectible world?

Here's an example of what I mean:

** eBay auction listing blocked. Please enable cookies in your browser for this site and for eBay! **

Every listing is like this, including some in the 4 digit price range.

In the past i have emailed and requested photos and details of the specific item being sold - which they provided several days later. I can hardly believe this is how they do business online. Am I crazy?

You are not crazy at all. I think it's disingenuous to use stock photos without putting that in enormous type. They make mistakes quite often with their grading. On the other hand they do stand behind the sales and will take things back, that just happens to be a hassle I don't want to deal with with, so I buy much less than I used to from them. Their prices are another matter. They are often much higher than comparable items sell for. They definitely cater to a "I have no time to look around and see if someone else is selling this for 1/3 the price" clientele. They do pack things very well and know to fill up the shipping boxes so items don't move around. I have been sent the wrong high end collectable a couple of times, but again they do stand behind their sales. They do find more high end items than most places. So overall a bit of a mixed bag. Their customer service staff is friendly. I do think they should rethink their stock photo concept for items over say $1000 or $500 or some manageable amount of items.

Shrink is not a condition

for_the_love_of_the_stuff
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Posted: Sun Aug 01, 2021 5:45 pm

I've bought from them a few times (from their website, not on eBay), and generally been satisfied.
Condition for all my purchases was as advertised, and their customer service was good and prompt with answers to questions.

shadeun
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Posted: Sun Aug 01, 2021 6:11 pm

I don't like stock photo's but have bought off them shipped UK after asking for pics and they've been promptly provided.

So, thats something.

benjoshua
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Posted: Mon Aug 02, 2021 8:07 am

I agree that using stock photos on eBay is disliked by lots of people and has been mentioned as a gripe/complaint before. I don't like it either, but I rarely buy from Noble Knight. Noble Knight has been discussed many times for various reasons including their high asking prices. Here's one previous thread:

The Noble Knight Dragon #1 Conundrum

Truth is worth finding and life is too short to work for money.

Gus Landt
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Location: Green Bay, WI

Posted: Mon Aug 02, 2021 11:19 am

For the past ~5 years I have been the entire IT department for Noble Knight Games. I do 100% of the coding for them.

As of about 2 years ago, we try to take individual pictures of anything $500+. In the case of the auction being discussed here, the pictures in the auction ARE of the actual item. The "All pictures are stock photos" in the auction is template boilerplate that I haven't had the time to dig into the coding for (As the sole programmer, I only have so much time to work on the million things that need doing). I need to figure out how to overwrite that boilerplate when we send actual images.

As grubbiv points out, you can see that on our website - we show a stock photo as usual, but we also have 3 pictures of the actual item.

As for pricing, we simply aren't interested in competing on price. We've never been interested in being the cheapest around. As many have pointed out in this thread - we stand by our products and we generally do a good job grading. When you have 20+ people cataloging products, not all of them are always going to grade everything the same. We don't just shrug our shoulders on that though! We actually put a fair amount of resources into training new catalogers AND in reviewing and re-training existing catalogers to all be consistent. It's an ongoing process though.

mbassoc2003
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Posted: Mon Aug 02, 2021 2:13 pm

I used to buy a lot of stuff from NKG. I still browse, and I still receive the e-mails, but I stopped buying from them because it was just too hard to get an honest description and pictures of what you were interested in. There is no consideration given to the online customer experience. I get that it's easier to sell stuff to a walk in off the street, and it's easier for them to see the condition and the make their own assessments of the product they are buying. But for a business to entertain online sales, remove completely the seller's option to make their own judgement as to the quality of the product they are buying, and then arbitrarily apply an assessment made by a member of staff with no interest of experience in collecting or grading paper products on the basis that it's Noble Knights own inhouse grading system results in people with money to spend seeking out more open and transparent sellers to spend their money with. When the majority of eBay sellers are more honest, upfront and open about what they are selling than Noble Knight Games, that's a pretty damning indictment of where NKG's values lie relative to their buyers.

To put it into context, I will not message eBay sellers asking for better photos or whether or not what they are selling has writing or highlighting in it. If they are not intelligent enough to know that someone buying a book wants to know these things, or they are not honest enough and choose to hide behind ambiguity and generalisation, then I have no interest in giving them my money. There will always be another opportunity to buy from a seller who wants to sell products, values the buyer, and demonstrated greater integrity and honesty without having to be asked to do so.

This week I've been mostly eating . . . The white ones with the little red flecks in them.

muaddib5
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Posted: Mon Aug 02, 2021 3:03 pm

I've only bought a few things and not much recently. It's a pain in the azz when buying used items and the seller used NKG as a source for their pricing.

Home - Gen Con Wisconsin 1968 2002

mbassoc2003
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Posted: Mon Aug 02, 2021 3:09 pm

When a mass market seller is big enough, they can pretty much treat their buyers like shit, because there will always be another buyer. Cougie demonstrated this admirable, and I'm sure he believed he was treating everyone fairly and honestly, and believed in he was not in any way demonstrating contempt for the buying public. He certainly never cared to explain or justify his actions, which was probably the wisest thing he ever did.

Now, I don't know if he's retired, or if he's still selling, or if he's bigger or smaller. He could be a platinum seller of eBay for all I know. But when sellers start demonstrating ignorance and contempt for the people who pay them money, that is when I look to place my money elsewhere. If anyone knows if Cougie is still around, let us know. Post an eBay link. I'm curious not to see what his product and customer churn is like.

This week I've been mostly eating . . . The white ones with the little red flecks in them.

shadeun
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Posted: Mon Aug 02, 2021 3:12 pm

mbassoc2003 wrote in noble knight games ebay practices:When a mass market seller is big enough, they can pretty much treat their buyers like shit, because there will always be another buyer. Cougie demonstrated this admirable, and I'm sure he believed he was treating everyone fairly and honestly, and believed in he was not in any way demonstrating contempt for the buying public. He certainly never cared to explain or justify his actions, which was probably the wisest thing he ever did.

Now, I don't know if he's retired, or if he's still selling, or if he's bigger or smaller. He could be a platinum seller of eBay for all I know. But when sellers start demonstrating ignorance and contempt for the people who pay them money, that is when I look to place my money elsewhere. If anyone knows if Cougie is still around, let us know. Post an eBay link. I'm curious not to see what his product and customer churn is like.

As in CougarRinard?

Sardan
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Posted: Mon Aug 02, 2021 5:38 pm

shadeun wrote in noble knight games ebay practices:
As in CougarRinard?

Yep.

mbassoc2003
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Posted: Tue Aug 03, 2021 2:26 am

Yep. Is he still around? He had one of the worst reputations for stock art, spurious descriptive practices, and all those things NKG seem to embrace.

This week I've been mostly eating . . . The white ones with the little red flecks in them.

ashmire13
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Posted: Tue Aug 03, 2021 7:02 am

Not sure that the Coug is still churning out, unless he’s changed his user name. Or his past caught up with him. Or Covid.

Rolls a '3'

"Did I hit.....?"

shadeun
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Posted: Tue Aug 03, 2021 7:14 am

I think he's around, or was very recently. I almost bought a fair bit off him but the price is never quite right. Defs remember seeing his name on ebay behind a few items recently though

mbassoc2003
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Posted: Tue Aug 03, 2021 10:22 am

ashmire13 wrote in noble knight games ebay practices:Or Covid.

I seem to remember him changing his eBay name to 'little fairy princess' or something. I think he was going through a bad patch or needed to change his image or something, or was that someone else on the shady dealers thread?

This week I've been mostly eating . . . The white ones with the little red flecks in them.

Last edited by mbassoc2003 on Tue Aug 03, 2021 10:28 am, edited 1 time in total.

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