posted 10-18-2008 04:36 AM               

So my question is, can I block a certain seller's listings from coming up in my eBay search queries? There is one seller in particular whose listings make up at least 40% of the space autographs priced over $100, and I'd prefer not have his crap clogging up my search results.

posted 10-18-2008 10:53 AM               

And the results, wow, they are sooo much easier to review! I haven't been this happy since I installed the Ad-block plug-in for Firefox!

posted 10-18-2008 03:00 PM               

That seller has been "clogging up" eBay for years, but has been making a financial killing along the way. He's certainly made a small fortune just from the sale of photos, postcards and covers said to be signed by the Soyuz 11 crew (one just sold for $799). But no less an authority than the commander of the original Soyuz 11 crew, Alexei Leonov, has stated that the Soyuz 11 crew that flew and died didn't sign anything.

This seller has recently sold an ASTP signed cover (270276849083) with more-than-suspicious astronaut autographs. His selling history includes signed flown flags; Mir and Soyuz flown hardware (including a flown Soyuz 11 drinking trough); multi-signed early cosmonaut covers and photos; Gagarin (he now has 39 on eBay), Tsiolkovsky and Korolev autographs and hand written letters, etc. His prices are usually much lower than found elsewhere and he offers a never-ending parade of autograph material rarely found elsewhere - unless it originated from him.

It is surprising that he has a perfect 100% eBay feedback rating, on 2020 transactions, but much of his feedback comes from large amounts of unsigned material, such as models, shawls, Soviet publications, various knickknacks, etc. And obviously he sells much of his autograph material to inexperienced and uninformed collectors.

posted 10-19-2008 12:07 AM               

I heard many collectors saying they are tired of wading through 100+ pages each week to find an auction at all.

It's important to tell people as well to use the new search functions before they get tired of everything.

I wonder if that's another nail in the coffin of ebay. The former fun with bidding disappears more and more.

Florian

posted 10-19-2008 12:14 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by Bob M:
This seller has recently sold an ASTP signed cover (270276849083) with more-than-suspicious astronaut autographs.

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BTW it's interesting to note that indeed his astronaut fakes are much worse than the cosmonaut fake signatures. Also foreign guest cosmonauts like the Germans who flew on MIR and ISS are usually very bad.

You may note that many of his signatures/fakes look drawn and have a wrong "angle" how they were signed.

I can only recommend to compare his Russian signatures with real KNIGA covers and you'll notice the difference.

posted 10-19-2008 01:02 PM               

He probably gets his material from many different sources in Russia and his mistake may be that he doesn't realize that what he is selling is often questionable. And it's also possible that he isn't careful or concerned enough to only accept autographs from reputable sources, and also fails to have the autographs authenticated by competent authorities. These are, of course, just two of several scenarios that would explain his history of distributing dubious autographs.

Whatever the case, he's been ultra successful for many years and has been a permanent and successful fixture on eBay. And many big and small auctions have sold material identical to what is typically seen from him on eBay, and very possibly originated from him (One example is a now-defunct dealer who several years ago bought a Soyuz 11 crew signed photo from Maksuta for around $1,000 and re-sold it to one of his elitist customers for $4,000).

Surely, many collections all over the world contain autograph material that originated from this prolific seller.

posted 10-20-2008 01:04 PM               

I thought I did the right thing but now I am starting to wonder...

posted 10-20-2008 01:15 PM               

Relax, your flown flag is probably genuine, as it doesn't have the characterists of flags from known dubious sources and it probably has a direct connection with one of the Exp. 9 crew members. The cosmonaut material in that section in the R-S auction all looks to be from reputable sources.

posted 10-21-2008 12:34 AM               

I can probably give green light as well re. 550. The scan in the catalog is too small to judge (and keep in mind signatures do look weird on silk flags from time to time) but you may ask if the consignor is from Houston (which I believe based on my info).

Then the flag comes straight from a cosmonaut and is 100% authentic as many other items in the sale from the same consignor.

best regards
Florian

posted 10-21-2008 04:21 AM               

Very kind of you to put my mind to rest. This flag is important to me because of the Dutch connection and because it is of historical value.

In my opinion it has everything in it: a Dutch astronaut, the USA flag, a cosmonaut, a NASA astronaut and it has been going around our world in a joint venture in a space station where people do experiments for the good of us all.

Cannot beat that, I think.

Thanks again, I really appreciate it,

posted 10-28-2008 03:29 PM               

As we know, Korolev was the super-secret "Chief Designer", and not actually known to the West until sometime after his death. So it seems unlikely that Korolev would go around signing so many photos of himself and various Soviet covers to his fans in the Soviet space program. But maybe he did and somehow "Maksuta" has been the lucky recipient of many dozens of signed Korolev collector momentos and for some time now been selling them to his customers. It is amazing how he seems to have just about anything from the USSR/Russian space program available for sale -