@peterthevet I thought it best to start a new topic to reply to you rather than discuss this in @Tony Press topic. You said: I started to negotiate with the seller of the Gloria lamp the same day as he placed the lamp on ebay as an auction. The seller dragged out the negotiations and despite agreeing to a price waited until there was less than 24 hours remaining on the auction before he finally pulled the auction. In that time, I wasn't aware of anyone that had placed a bid. To my knowledge, there wasn't any bids placed on the lamp when the seller withdrew his listing. Since you say you bid on the lamp, I believe you, it must have been around the same time as the seller pulled the auction which was last night with about 16 hours left on the auction. Peter, I unashamedly admit I will contact sellers and try to negotiate a way for me to purchase their lamps that are up for auction - if there are no bids placed on the lamp. From start to finish of my negotiations with the seller, there were no bids - including me, I didn't actually bid on the lamp. In fact, I had the feeling the seller was dragging out the process of pulling the auction waiting to see if someone else would bid on the lamp and he could then further weigh up his options. It must have simply been very bad timing for you as the auction had no bids for the first 7 to 10 days (I can't recall how long he had the auction listed for) Peter, I do feel your pain, I'm sorry it happened to you though I am certainly not sorry I now have the lamp. I do hope you feel better for publicly shaming me. I will admit that I have negotiated with a seller and prior to the negotiations concluding someone has placed a bid and I have still bought the lamp. Peter, one of the great pleasures I have as a collector is to notify fellow collectors of badly listed or obscure listings of lamps that I know they would be interested in. I would say it would be in the hundreds that I have had helped collectors find lamps and buy them. I have been burnt by fellow collectors many times. I have found multiple lamps for sale, shown the listing to a collector and we have agreed on buying the lamps together and splitting them. On more than one occasion, I never received the lamps as decided upon. I have shown 'friends' lamps, lamps they would never have seen and had those 'friends' buy the lamps from under me. As I said, I feel your pain.
Matty I apologise unreservedly. This could quickly turn into a he said, she said pissing contest - which would be no good for anyone let alone this superb forum. I will also apologise to Tony for sullying his superb thread.
