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Very Hot Topic (More than 25 Replies) What do you think of this tang sight on eBay? (Read 12675 times)
Bill Lawrence
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What do you think of this tang sight on eBay?
Apr 14th, 2017 at 9:54am
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Currently for sale on eBay is what's touted as a Stevens No. 108 vernier tang sight.  Just copy its item number,  232298079817, into eBay’s SEARCH box and you’ll go right to it.

Now the seller has already gotten bids for enough amount that he will sell his sight, so the following is to that point a moot one.  But please bear with me.

After viewing the sight, I emailed the seller as follows:

The hole in the top of your sight's frame serves no purpose and indeed shouldn't be there. Now while theoretically possible, I can't imagine any gun company, even parsimonious Stevens, issuing a precision target sight containing make-do parts. Much more likely, some enterprising craftsman repaired your sight with a spare part. In any case, however it came to be, your sight is only partially a factory-issued No. 108.

Bill Lawrence,
ASSRA Life Member


And here is the seller’s response

Bill,

Sights I've seen in Strobels books don't always match sights seen on vintage classic rifles or some on-line. And why doesn't the left side of the staff have the radiused notch? Why is it numbered all the way down like the factory issued? This is the way we received this sight and take as many close-up pics as possible to show we're not trying to hide anything. I understand what you're referring to but there are co many variables when these sights and others were made. Thank you for your input.

Jim Stamm
NRA Life Member


Beyond the fact that the seller apparently thinks that the NRA trumps the ASSRA on this point, what so you Stevens afficionados think of the sight?

Bill Lawrence
  
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kensmachine
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Re: What do you think of this tang sight on eBay?
Reply #1 - Apr 14th, 2017 at 11:07am
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Looking at it I would say it's had a fair amount of repair work and it looks too short in the staff the  wind gauge adjustment knob doesn't look right and the knurling  on the center adjustment knob does not look right. ken    (You need to Login or Register to view media files and links)
  
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Re: What do you think of this tang sight on eBay?
Reply #2 - Apr 14th, 2017 at 11:14am
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this is what I would think a 108 should look like if not SCREWED with (You need to Login or Register to view media files and links)
  
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marlinguy
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Re: What do you think of this tang sight on eBay?
Reply #3 - Apr 14th, 2017 at 11:18am
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I don't think there's much left of an original Stevens sight there, except the aperture and the windage base it screws into. The staff appears to be from another sight, and the base looks like it's off one of the modern Jeff's Outfitters sights made in Hungary. 
Looks like somebody will be buying it, but I'd surely never want it for a collector's sight, or to shoot with. Not worth the price for the parts either.
  

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Re: What do you think of this tang sight on eBay?
Reply #4 - Apr 15th, 2017 at 1:02am
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No doubt this is a cobbled together sight, but......  I think the way he did the windage adjustment is a vast improvement over Stevens.  If you will notice, it works just like a S&W target sight adjust for windage.  I like that part of it.  Also, notice on the windage the screw was made as an assemble, simplifying making it and allowing the slop to be taken out of it upon assembly.
  

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uscra112
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Re: What do you think of this tang sight on eBay?
Reply #5 - Apr 15th, 2017 at 10:16pm
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Guy got pretty salty, didn't he?  Is he truly ignorant, or P.O.'d at being found out?

I'm in agreement that it's at best a "bitza" sight, with the wrong staff at least.  He doesn't know that Favorites and Model 44s need a different staff angle, either.  It'll work for one or the other but not both.  I already learned that the hard way.

Tried to express my own assessment to him, but can't get evilBay to let me send him a message.  Can a seller block emails?  Oh, well.   Sad thing is that somebody's going to buy it and be disappointed.  m
  

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Redsetter
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Re: What do you think of this tang sight on eBay?
Reply #6 - Apr 15th, 2017 at 11:49pm
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uscra112 wrote on Apr 15th, 2017 at 10:16pm:

Tried to express my own assessment to him, but can't get evilBay to let me send him a message.  Can a seller block emails?  Oh, well.   Sad thing is that somebody's going to buy it and be disappointed.  m


You tried "ask seller a question"?  He can't be forced to respond, but he should at least receive the inquiry.

Don't think buyer will be disappointed, as he obviously has chosen to believe seller's description.
  
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Bill Lawrence
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Re: What do you think of this tang sight on eBay?
Reply #7 - Apr 16th, 2017 at 12:39am
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The comments so far have suggested that at least one other ASSRA member has tried to contact the sight's seller.  And while Mr. Stamm has apparently stopped responding to all comments or inquiries directly, he has posted the following on his sight's auction:

Note: If you'll check our feedback, you'll see we try our best to make our buyers happy. Regarding this sight, we did as much research as possible on it before listing. Took as many pics as possible too, to show there's nothing to hide. Apparently a member of an ASSRA  Org. who said, "While theoretically possible...", that it's a Stevens sight, started tearing it apart. I asked him questions he either couldn't or wouldn't answer. And that wasn't enough for him so he emails me with more members condemning us too. What the heck kind of club is this? Nothing better to do than harass Ebay sellers? To the best of my knowledge, this truly IS a Stevens No.108 Tang Sight in very good condition.

Now, Mr. Stamm is truthful about one thing, that I did not answer his two questions. But since he makes a point of it, please reread his response in my first posting and ask yourself if his questions were worth even trying to answer.

In any case, I thank all those who have provided their expertise.  And I also apologize to you all for my actions having caused our organization to be defamed in public.

But then, to coin a variation of an old saw, perhaps it's simply true that not even attempted good deeds go unpunished.

Bill Lawrence
  
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uscra112
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Re: What do you think of this tang sight on eBay?
Reply #8 - Apr 16th, 2017 at 7:19am
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@Redsetter:  I quit evilBay about 5 or 6 years ago after a contretemps with PayPal.  (They are most emphatically NOT a "secure way to pay".)  Since then they've changed the way the site works, and I'm not yet familiar enough, I guess.  I kept getting bounced back to the main listing, when trying to "ask a question".  
I like to point out listing errors, when I am sure enough of myself, to sellers on Gunbroker. Most sellers say "thank you", but there's always the one in ten that's offended. So it goes.
  

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Re: What do you think of this tang sight on eBay?
Reply #9 - Apr 16th, 2017 at 8:29am
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The basic truth is people hide behind ebay's advantages of being an online "store" and letting you be anonymous, and the nature of humans to believe what they read.  There are many sellers in the hobbies I like that on the surface appear "experts" and very knowledgeable.  But it's a shtick, their purpose is to sell as high and as often as possible, regardless of partial frauds.

There was a seller in my other hobby (antique cameras) that started selling on ebay before he learned anything about the subject.  He wrote vivid, imaginative ads.  He sold to many of us things that we found were misrepresented.  When we complained, he'd ask for your phone number to discuss, then try every trick in the book to keep you from writing a bad feedback.  He would curse you, ignore you, cajole you.  We all learned....and avoided him.  The last I looked, he has sold hundreds of thousands of dollars of cameras and exotic lenses.  Every major city has Craigslist ads from him asking to buy "your old, moldy cameras..."  A magazine article interviewed him as being one of Ebay's top sellers, I think making him a millionaire the past 10 years.  

These types of people could care less about a few true experts trying to contact them and advise of a problem.  They are cocky and confident their sales will continue.  Lot of them on Gunbroker too.  Some selling fake Colt boxes and grips, for example, with nobody stopping them.
  
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uscra112
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Re: What do you think of this tang sight on eBay?
Reply #10 - Apr 16th, 2017 at 10:04am
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Do I remember correctly that evilBay made it impossible to leave negative feedback for a seller? Somewhere about 2007 or 2008?
  

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Bill Lawrence
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Re: What do you think of this tang sight on eBay?
Reply #11 - Apr 16th, 2017 at 10:16am
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It's the eBay buyer who is is safe from negative feedback. But you do have to be careful about the wording of any negative comment on a seller, lest you be the one who suffers eBay's retribution.

Bill Lawrence
  
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Redsetter
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Re: What do you think of this tang sight on eBay?
Reply #12 - Apr 16th, 2017 at 1:35pm
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Bill Lawrence wrote on Apr 16th, 2017 at 10:16am:
It's the eBay buyer who is is safe from negative feedback...
Bill Lawrence
 

Even if he welches on paying!  As I found out the hard way.   
  
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Bill Lawrence
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Re: What do you think of this tang sight on eBay?
Reply #13 - Apr 17th, 2017 at 12:46am
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For those who like to cry silently, that travesty of a sight sold for $402.74 (including shipping).  Sigh!

Bill Lawrence
  
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Re: What do you think of this tang sight on eBay?
Reply #14 - Apr 17th, 2017 at 3:59am
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The old time auctioneer's cry "The more you pay, the more it's worth" seems appropriate.
  

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