NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: A Good Sextant Buy
From: Joel Jacobs
Date: 2004 Mar 25, 17:34 -0500
From: Joel Jacobs
Date: 2004 Mar 25, 17:34 -0500
Renee, If you go to our website www.landandseacollection.com, and look at used sextants you will find a resume of prices by manufacture of actual sextant sales. If that Freiberger is really as nice as it appears in the picture, we would expect it to bring around $425.00 plus S&H. Only you can judge whether buying from someone like us, who offers return privileges, and takes extra care in prepping an instrument for sale, and actually testing it, writing a detailed description, warts and all, is worth the extra money. Saying we have never had a sextant damaged is like a boater saying he has never run aground. Somewhere along the line it is almost inevitable. I flew planes for 21 years before I crashed, and got injured. We have had models damaged in shipment, and now double box some of them. Out of 230 shipments since last SEP, 4 models were damaged. With a damaged shipment, we take control immediately and make the claim and do everything possible to recoup. We do not expect the customer to do any of this. We immediately ship a replacement at no cost to the customer. Once, we had to order a replacement. If you dig into our Feedbacks and look carefully you will find those whose misfortune it was to receive a damaged model. In the case of a sextant, you have three levels of protection in the way they we pack them. I can't say never, but the likelihood is less. I have a great series of pictures of a sextant that was improperly packed by someone else which if you want I'll send you. I hope this answers your questions. Renee, Joel Jacobs ----- Original Message ----- From: "Renee Mattie"To: Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2004 3:22 PM Subject: Re: A GOOD SEXTANT BUY > I scrolled through some of the negative feedback on this guy. > It would seem that he does not understand the products he sells, > that he is not careful in the words he uses to describe them > (vintage = repro? calibrated = he can set IC to 0 at 0degrees?) > that he is not careful when he photographs things, > that he sometimes reuses photos of similar items, > that he doesn't pack carefully, > that he is rude to customers when they call to complain, > and that he has a poor command of the English language. > His emails are often rejected by customers' servers > (perhaps his ISP is on one or more spam > blocking lists?) > 97.5% of the time, things work out OK. > > I am considering buying a sextant, but > I am not sure I would want to take the > 2.5% risk of disaster by dealing with > this seller. Even at a discount. > > I guess other potential buyers have > declined to bid once they have read > about his poor business practices. > Which might explain the discount. > > Joel, > I read your comments about packing costs. > What percentage of your shipments are damaged > in transit? Do you call your customers > names when they call to report it? > > If you and he were offering essentially > identical items, would I be better off > paying more to get it from you? I'm > no actuary, but it sounds like an actuarial > question to me. > > Renee