Dang, can't get a "break".
Snagged a nice blue AE80 for a decent price. It's an older one with the chrome dial card ring, and is my birthday month and year, same as my pink one.
I even asked the seller to pack it well, and mentioned the half dozen broken ones I've received recently.
The packing was half decent, but not good enough. The seller is being great as far as the refund, unlike the last seller, but it sure is a disappointment finding a cool phone for a good price, waiting out the auction for a week, doing the bid, and having it arrive busted half of the time. Much more of this and I'm going to back off of ebay phone purchases.
The seller is filing the insurance claim with USPS, and said I can most likely keep the phone, but I almost don't even care to put the work into restoring the color when the housing is cracked in two places.
I don't suppose I'd ever find a blue replacement housing, and if I did, it would probably cost more than the phone, and arrive busted.
Bummer for sure.
I got 2 brit phones not long ago, arrived with holes busted into the bakelite :(
some glue, and ignore the bad spots, but bummed bout the poor packing.
Seems popular to pack poorly.
Bummer. That really sucks, especially after you warned about packing properly. Seems like it would be an easy repair. As you said, not an easy to find color so it would probably be worth the effort.
Sorry to read that. I feel your disappointment, I think we have all here experienced it.
I attach packing instructions as a polite message when paying, and then cut and paste the text and send it separately as a direct message. Some sellers simply don't understand how to pack a phone for shipping.
Most try to follow the instructions, but there will always be others who think they know better. I've even had a few get stroppy about it, but I think better to send the info than not.
If you pm me I can message you the packing info I send if it helps.
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That should repair quite well. If you get to retain the phone, there are some good threads on here to help you.
Thanks folks. I'll shoot you a PM Fab. Sometimes I try to give general directions, as I did with this one, and explain how many have gotten broken. It's a toss-up as to who will follow directions and who will take it as an insult, like you're trying to tell them how to do their job. Just depends on the individual, I guess. Sometimes I look at their other items for sale and see if they sell phones or not. If it looks like someone who sells mostly clothing & non phone items, I'm more likely to make the comment about proper packing. In the end, they seem to follow their own normal procedure.
I used the search function and have been reading some of the repair threads.
When you guys say it looks like an easy fix, are you thinking with superglue or acetone? It has the hairline that goes from the bottom edge a couple of inches straight up the front, and is all the way through, and the other smaller arc shaped crack down by the foot.
The seller thinks I'll be able to keep the item, but I won't know for sure for a couple of days.
Josh
Yea, it definitely sucks to get a set broken. You get your self all ready to get another set to add, then that happens.
Bummer, maybe someone will have a housing if that can't be repaired.
this is why I hardly buy on Ebay anymore... not just the bad pricing, and shipping.... but the people don't tell you the truth about the condition. I bought a 302 a while back and the shell was shattered. since I paid less then $10.00 for it, I used it for parts... but was still disappointed about the true condition...
Well, the seller wasn't dishonest about it, and is being fair about the problem. It definitely happened during shipping because I saw plenty of closeup pics and the cracks weren't there. Plus, the box had one corner that was crunched and torn.
I'm finding out, phones and stereo components seem to have about a 50/50 chance of surviving, and it's mostly due to faulty packing.
Agreed. I recently bought a phone off the bay, and everything was fine. The packing was lousy, but the set arrived fine.
So sellers need to be educated on how pack them and other things correctly.
As for shipping, that will only continue to go up. That's the way it will be for ever.
I also wanted to add, I used to sell a LOT of stuff on eBay, and I've even skimped on packing my self. And after a while I realised that I was so busy with work 8 + hours a day, and I had to pack stuff sold after work, it took all my time.
And sourcing boxes and packing was starting to get scarce to the point I had to use what I could find for packing.
And those were the times things got broke during shipping.
So I bit the bullet, and bought backing stuff when I needed and just made sure to charge enough extra for the cost of those supply. So that to is another factor to deal with when doing that sort of thing.
So sellers that have a lot of stuff for sale, often do it as quickly and cheap as possible. So that's when things get broken
Well, there is hope. The seller issued the refund yesterday, and I just now won another blue one that's nearly identical. It's dated to 1968 and has the full plastic dial, where the broken one dates to 1960 and has the chrome dial center ring. So most likely I'll use the new housing on the older phone, and eventually try to repair the cracked housing when I get caught up.
I did email the seller and discussed the packaging of phones. He said he has shipped lots of phones and felt confident that he can get it here in one piece.
They're both somewhat faded and will need the color restored. It's not over until it's over, so at this point I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it arrives safely with no cracks. Keep your fingers crossed for me.
Will update.
Well Josh, I hope they pack it better for ya,
Yay, the 2nd blue AE80 arrived and it is not broken. The cracked one, on left, is dated 4/60. The newer one is dated 8/68.
Both are faded and will require some restoration. Interesting how the handsets, h/s cords, and dial shrouds faded differently.
I'm planning on using the housing and handset cord from the newer one on the right. I also have a green AE80 with a dial wheel problem, so I'll also use the newer style dial wheel from the one on the right to upgrade my green one.
Both have pretty nice blue line cords too. Overall, I don't have a lot of $$ in them, so they should make decent phones when completed.
Here they are as received, and not yet cleaned.
Did the cracked housing have the handset cord cutout on just the back or both back and side? I have a beige AE80 with a rear mount handset cord but also has the side mount hole in the shell so I'm curious about if the shell is from a later refurb of the set or if AE was making both mounting styles for a period and just used a shell with both cutouts
Congrats on getting a good one! Keep us posted on the restoration.
Quote from: Stormcrash on February 21, 2020, 05:55:53 PM
Did the cracked housing have the handset cord cutout on just the back or both back and side? I have a beige AE80 with a rear mount handset cord but also has the side mount hole in the shell so I'm curious about if the shell is from a later refurb of the set or if AE was making both mounting styles for a period and just used a shell with both cutouts
Both sets have the two cutouts in the rear, but only the newer one has the side cutout. The 4/60 set has no side cutout. So that may tell us that sometime between 1960 and 1968 they went to the different style with the cord coming out the side, and did away with the chrome dial card center. Of course, this is assuming that both of these sets are all original, which they very well may not be.
I always remind the seller to please pack it properly, and if it arrives broken, I will be demanding a refund.
I recently saw a cheap pre- war WE302 (metal) I think it was on Facebook. Seller was in the region but still far. Seller refused to meet half way (40min drive each), and insisted on shipping . I declined shipping as this is exactly the the kind of base that would do damage to the handset if not very carefully packaged.
That is messed up. The last few times I bought a plastic phone, I sent them a picture of how to pack phones, as I too have had phones arrive damaged due to poor packing, despite telling them to please pack it properly, really ticking me off. So many just don't understand or care about how to pack fragile items. They won't accept the fact that if it can move around and is not well padded, it probably will be damaged. They also don't understand that "Fragile, Handle With Care" on the box does not help. And now, the Post Office no longer allows "Special Handling".
Mike
Quote from: markosjal on December 16, 2022, 11:59:06 PMI recently saw a cheap pre- war WE302 (metal) I think it was on Facebook. Seller was in the region but still far. Seller refused to meet half way (40min drive each), and insisted on shipping . I declined shipping as this is exactly the the kind of base that would do damage to the handset if not very carefully packaged.
I have received very few broken handsets, even though most sellers "leave the receiver on the hook", even in an oversized box. I can see why the seller didn't want to spend close to an hour and $5 - $10 worth of gas to deliver a $25 phone.
I don't even worry about broken plastic housings on 302s, since I can't even get $8 on ebay for a good housing. If you need F1 handles, I can send you some for the cost of shipping. Sorry, I can't drive to west coast: (Last time I did that was in a 1970 Cadillac for a Drive-Away company which charged the owner for delivering his car from Atlanta to CA. They paid me $30 a day for 7 days, but it cost me only $100 for gas in 1974.)
When we were buying 302s in early 1990s for $20 each from ACI (which had the $0.11 per pound contract for all the "lease junk" from the nearby AT&T Service Center), they were 2 to 1 plastic, but probably 1/3 of the plastic ones were cracked. So of course we cherry picked the ones we wanted out of each gaylord of about 180 302s.
BTW, metal 302 housings were made from late 1936 - early 1942, then again in 1946. Plastic started in 1941.