Unbelievable - no packing!!

jesse1dog

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With advancing years I somehow expect to get more childish! After all I have now 'won' a Yashica 35CC on EchoBay - whatever do I want let alone need another RF for? However experience does lead me to have some expectations.

An Oly 35RC arrived from the US in a large cardboard box.
It rattled!
On opening the camera was half in and half out of a large camera bag together with an assortment of filters, tripod etc all unexpected, all un-needed.
And NO PACKING whatsoever!
Nothing - not even one piece of foam or bubble wrap.

Yesterday a thin bubble pack mailing envelope arrived with the Yashica inside. Camera in its hard 'leather' case.
But agin no other packing whatsoever.
Nothing.

I can't believe this is usual. Is this your experience?

Lesson learnt. From now onwards I will immediately mail the seller and instruct on how I want the item sent. If it costs me more - so be it. The Olympus 35RC seller did himself a big dis-service. By not packing properly in using a heavy cardboard box and by sending all the junk it cost him an extra $10 postage - he got $11 from selling the camera.

But what do I mean lesson learnt?
First lesson is not to buy any more cameras!

I think both cameras are probably OK but that must be more luck than judgement.
 
Its more common than it should be. I have had B&H ( who I love ) and Calumet both send high end items with bubble wrap - but they didnt secure the wrap with tape so when it arrived, the camera was free floating in the box.

Dan
 
<rant>
It's not limited to cameras, of course - some people just don't think: sent bits of my motorbike to be painted recently, and they were returned loose in a large box, completely destroyed as some of those parts weighed several pounds!

And the painter blamed me as I hadn't instructed him how to pack the bits...!! :mad: :bang:
</rant>
 
It's happened to me with cameras that sold cheaply. I think the sellers get plssed that there "valuable" camera only went for ten bucks or so and pack it that way out of spite.
 
I recall reading on a guitar forum (that's a whole 'nother shade of GAS ;-) ) about a guitar that was shipped OVERSEAS wrapped only in cellophane!!! No guitar case, no box, nothin'! And it got there in good shape!
 
I've been lucky, I guess. I've bought (and sold) a lot of stuff over the past few years - mostly camera gear - and I've never had anything arrive badly packed.
 
Joe Mondello said:
I recall reading on a guitar forum (that's a whole 'nother shade of GAS ;-) ) about a guitar that was shipped OVERSEAS wrapped only in cellophane!!! No guitar case, no box, nothin'! And it got there in good shape!
That's because her majesties' royal postbangers knew what they were moving..

I guess the damage with loosely packed boxes comes from one postal guy asking the next 'Hey, this one rattles, what you guess is in here?' Other guy rattles it about for a while; 'dunno, but it makes a strange sound if I shake it like this..'. First guy; 'hey, let me have a try too.. um.. no, still can't make out what it is'..
 
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It happens. Earlier this year I got a hard-to-find Willy Ronis book in a regular envelope with no packing. It looked like someone had driven an axe through the spine. I got a full refund but would much rather have had the book. It went on sale again a couple weeks later at a reduced price.
 
OUCH! Hope your camera's OK.
I've had similar things happen to me twice.
First time was for a Seagull 205(all manual 35mmRF camera, about the size of the later Canonets). Came in a Ziplok bag inside a fedex mailer. And suffered along the way to me; RF is off and the shutter won't cock or fire.
The second time was for the Argus C44 "kit" that I got; Camera, lenses, meter, cases for 'em all. Nothing was inside any of the cases and no packing at all.
The Argus wasn't a huge deal: I didn't pay a lot and didn't expect much, happy surprise after its trip to me that it works OK.
The Seagull was a disappointment more for other reasons than the "unpacking" job.
Both of those deals were from sellers in the US. Meanwhile, I've bought more FSU gear than anything else and all of that stuff has been well packed--though I never did get the brown paper and Yak string wrapped parcels. :(
Packing is one of the things I ask about before bidding and make note of in the ebay feedback I leave.
Rob
 
This really amazes me --- I've sold a fair amount of gear on Ebay, usually electronic to feed my GAS and it would *kill* me to have something happen to it because I didn't do a good job packing it.

It you care enough about it to want to pass it on for someone else to enjoy why would you not give it a careful send-off?

And the guitar story is amusing -- given the reverence that my teenage son has for guitars, I can well imagine that the (mostly male) postal carriers handled it with utmost care!

JT
 
well so far i've been lucky, items packed well. I always pack stuff I sell the way I would like to receive it. makes sense and doesn't cost much to do.
 
I just got from the post a heavy brown envelope with the Industar 61L/D in it. No bubbles wrap and foam whatsover. Just the envelope protecting the lens....What can I say....
 
I'm sorry to hear this. I generally pack carefully, I'm not an artist in packing but I try to wrap the item well with bubblewrap and to make sure that the item(s) inside the pack won't be moving at all. So far no problems happened to my customers, the largest item I sent was a 300mm f/4 Carl Zeiss Sonnar in Pentacon Six mount. Regarding items I bought, packing was always good, with a special mention on items purchased from RFF members, who are very attentionate on how they prepare their packages.

Kudos to FrankS and to the member from whom I bought a 21/4 SC Skopar. :)
 
I once shipped a Nikon 85 1.4 AF with no packing. I taped the address on the UV filter and so it went.
I was actually hoping the lens would get damaged or lost since I insured it for 3000$ but it got delivered safe. I wasn't happy nor unhappy about it.
I got a negative feedback for the trade but that's it. Life goes on...
 
I just try to throw the things I sell on eBay in the general direction of the buyer. If they're far away, I really throw hard.

Why waste postage?
 
Wow, I never realized how lucky I have been with my purchasing history until now!

I do a lot of online buying and in turn I end up with a lot of styrofoam peanuts, crumpled paper, and bubble wrap. I'm not a wasteful person by nature, so this stuff almost never gets thrown out (though paper gets recycled if I am not anticipating selling/shipping anything in the near future). At one point, I accumulated 2 full garbage bags worth of styrofoam peanuts that I refused to put in the garbage. Every once in a while I look over my gear and purge what I don't need. The last time I did, you can be dang well sure everything was wrapped in bubble tape and packaged with peanuts!! I sold a telescope a few months back and wrapped that in three layers of bubble wrap and included the peanuts! Haha :D

Edward Felcher said:
I just try to throw the things I sell on eBay in the general direction of the buyer. If they're far away, I really throw hard.

Why waste postage?

Hahaha!!
 
Brian Sweeney said:
If you do not read "Great Packing", "Well Packaged", "Pro Packing" or the like, expect the worst.

I always pack properly (bubble wrap and peanuts) when shipping and seldom does the buyer mention the above so I don't fully agree.
 
A version of the Golden Rule: Pack photo gear that you are selling as securely as the you hope the gear you are buying is packed.
 
ugly bokeh said:
I just got from the post a heavy brown envelope with the Industar 61L/D in it. No bubbles wrap and foam whatsover. Just the envelope protecting the lens....What can I say....
hmmm, Russian lens, HOPE lens did not hurt the paper :D
 
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