We do purchase on ebay quite a bit. With it we have found items we would never have encountered through other means and filled some glaring gaps in our collection. Ebay is truly a realm where the buyer must beware. There are a lot of fakes. We see a lot of Buffalo Bill fakes and I am sure that there are also a fair number of Civil War-related fakes as well. I find that often the sellers with Buffalo Bill fakes will also have fake slave tags and fake cabinet cards of Old West characters. I am convinced that there is a cottage industry out there producing fakes specifically for sale on e-bay. E-bay feels no obligation to stop the selling of fakes despite complaints. Some of us have started alerting sellers and buyers about Buffalo Bill fakes but e-bay doesn't like that sort of thing. Your best protection is knowing your artifacts. And such connoiseurship of artifacts seems to be a dying art in many museums. Museum professionals seem to be better at coming up with new ways to number or store artifacts than they are at understanding the artifacts themselves. But that's another museum discussion topic. If you know what you are looking for and are a cautious bidder, you can avoid being burned. "Sniping" is always a problem on e-bay. I recently lost an item because even though I was a high bidder through most of the auction's term I was not able to monitor the auction when it ended and, at the last minute, I was outbid. I have lost out on items on e-bay within a margin of only 5 seconds before the auction. I do believe that e-bay is a real boon to both collectors and museums. Just like with everything else, your best protection is knowing what you are doing. Steve Friesen, Director Buffalo Bill Museum and Grave -----Original Message----- From: Hugh H. Genoways [mailto:[log in to unmask]] Sent: Wednesday, February 05, 2003 3:30 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Use of e-bay Does anyone have experience with buying items on e-bay for your museum's collections? Has it been successful? Did you encounter any problems? What were they? Any recommendations for other museums looking to fill specific needs for the collection in this manner? We are particularly interested in any attempts to purchase Civil War related artifacts in this manner. Thanks for your insights. Sincerely, Hugh Hugh H. Genoways University of Nebraska State Museum W436 Nebraska Hall University of Nebraska-Lincoln Lincoln, NE 68588-0514 Telephone: 402-472-2012 FAX: 402-472-8949 E-mail: <[log in to unmask]> Professor University of Nebraska State Museum School of Natural Resource Sciences Museum Studies Program Chair Museum Studies Program Visit our website at <http://www.unl.edu/museumstudies> ========================================================= Important Subscriber Information: The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes). If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes). ========================================================= Important Subscriber Information: The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes). If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes).