I hope you find at least a hint of humour in these postings. Laugh with me or at me or just shake your head: it does not matter, this is just a hobby - not life and death. Sadly, this story could not be made humorous in any way, shape or form. I tried. There is nothing to smile about, nothing to laugh about, nor anything close to a silver lining. In my world his position as number one Bottom Feeder has never been seriously challenged. There are more bottom dwellers out there, from Florida to Sacramento, to Montana. They prey on collectors of high priced American made pieces. Insulators that I have no interest in, which is the only reason they have not crawled onto my list.

My recent Fail with an Australian was a first. It was a first for an Australian deal to go sour. Over many years it was the only one out of maybe twenty five Aussie transactions. I have had a hundred foreign deals with only a small percentage not working out. Almost without exception every purchase from Italy had something, some glitch, some angle to deal with. Making a simple transaction difficult to impossible seems to be the norm, so much so I wonder if it is a cultural thing. More problems have originated from Italy than all the other countries I have dealt with combined.

The Australian auction was my latest, and possibly last attempt to buy foreign insulators. Please allow me a moment to enlighten you all about my very first foreign buy. And as it turned out, an indicator of what lay ahead.

Fifteen years ago was when I made my very first international buy online. I had found an insulator auction in Italy and a single bid won the auction, I think for 8 euro. I was so pleased with my computer illiterate self. With our recent purchase of a computer the internet now provided the door to unlimited international purchasing opportunities for my foreign collection and I had successfully opened it! In the sellers first email he stated he 'did not understand English and what was PayPal' ?

Fair enough and no problem, I was prepared. In the week it took the bank to get Euro's for me to send cash, we exchanged emails - in Italian. In one I explained why I was willing to pay more for postage than he thought the insulator was worth. BIG Mistake. He never mentions to me that he was himself a long-time collector, but in hindsight that would explain all his many questions. Finally I send an email that payment had been posted, he could expect it in about ten days.

The NEXT day he lists an identical one on eBay.com in English and now takes PayPal. I think, without using my inner voice, WTF ? It sells for $86, he lists another and another then a fourth sells. I watch as he pockets over $300 on just four insulators. European sales would have brought him closer to $30. It is a full month later, after the end of the fourth auction, before he acknowledges receipt of my payment and mails mine. The one I received was not the one from my auction but was a damaged substitute, a specimen. Cracked from the base to the WG, very weak to non-existent embossing, generally speaking it was not a saleable item. Just something to send to me in the box, to fulfill his obligation. He could have given me a heads up on his PayPal, but I see now where he was stalling for time to explore the US market. Once he found how lucrative it was, he sold the best for the most dollars he could get, leaving his poorest example last to send me. 7.5 billion people out there and he is my first contact. Just another lucky day for me.

I had opened his eyes to a very profitable venue where over the years he has made thousands of dollars selling common insulators to US collectors. In appreciation - he cheats me. At some point later he started selling questionable glazed porcelains and there was some indications he had moulds and produced his own insulators. In this purchase my good fortune was strictly limited to receiving a cheaper life lesson than numerous other unfortunate buyers did, some of which paid hundreds of dollars for very suspect insulators. After a couple of years the US market dried up. He then moved his listings to Germany. I guess if he could learn English in a week then certainly he could learn German as well. ( insert large sarcastic emoji here). I no longer buy much foreign, and certainly nothing that posts from Italy. I did not quit collecting foreign insulators solely because of my experiences with Italian sellers, but they certainly made the decision a whole lot easier.

The punch line to this ? He mentioned he was a lawyer !

Somehow, I was not surprised. I was also not amused.

I find it interesting that for maybe 20 foreign purchases from 5 - 6 countries in the two years after that, before PayPal became generally accepted overseas, I had sent cash and held to faith. ( I am a practicing Atheist but sometimes I fall off the wagon) All these deals went smoothly and successfully. Thankfully PayPal gained worldwide acceptance before I attempted any more Italian purchases. Call it Paypig if you will but it is insurance in any language and well worth it to me.

Perhaps the most memorable - in a good way, eBay win I have had was a French auction around the same time . The seller was interested in what I was using them for, liked the pictures I sent him. A couple days later I received a notice from PayPal - a partial refund on the purchase equal to the cost of the insulators. A note from the seller said I was welcome to them, just send him a picture of the display when it was done. Which I did as soon as the display was finished, three years later.

Two transactions reflecting opposite ends of the collecting spectrum. Happening around the same time, one cancels the other ? I only ever bought two glass insulators from Italy. The second one is pictured here as the cracked one that this story is about, well the crack continued to grow and in a few years the insulator broke cleanly in two.

I am not the first, last or only buyer who does not receive what was paid for. And it is a worldwide problem with no solution. By itself, this one purchase was hardly worth a mention. I got screwed - end of story. I do not really consider this a Fail for me at all but when you consider the lies and overall dishonesty I experienced and had to deal with on nearly every attempt to purchase insulators from that Country, it sure has produced a 'Fail' that is shared by all Italians. [id=496870561;next episode]