I have been waiting for a Secretary purchased 6 months ago. I bought 2 on Ebay and one arived 3 months ago! The problem is shipping not the Ebay sellers they are great but we are at the mercy of the shipping company! I will not mention the ones by name - they are all aparently all about the same! The costs for shipping rivaled the sale price of the items over $400.00 ea. and the service has been abomonable! The shipper blames the seller - who doesnt deserv it! The truck is a rental and the drivers are hired by the job and pickup on the East Coast taking a serpentiene rought to the west coast! Where they drop off the items on the way (several hundred items by my personal observations)! There is such a thing as fair market value! I think we are being gouged by the shippers! The service is poor and comunications are almost not existant!

If Ebay is the venue for Antiques and the comerce for those Antiques (most of the local dealers seem to feel it is) then we need to find a more echonomical and efficent means of delivery for those big items!

I am only staighting the problem - Whuther Rail, Buss, or Plain! Somethings got to be done to eliminate the bottleneck!

I am sure that in staighting the problem I am not going to be popular. I am aware from other dealers that they know the difficulties. They have confided our dependance of ___________ Deliveries! But if Ebay is going to be the leader in the Antique Ind. then it should take the oppertunity to dynamight the log jam! The business of America is Business and we are not going to take it lightly when that business is slowed to a crall by companies working at a snails pace! This is 2006 and our deliver companies are working at the pace of the 1700!

Martin Bilyeu