As several forum members may recall, I recently listed here a 1963 Steel Gray Ripple Pearl Rogers Powertone snare. It was publicized for about a week prior to the listing. The listing (thread) was set up (in the For Sale) as an auction offering, where the best offer by midnight Sunday night/Monday morning gets it. The thread grew and grew as I rejuvenated the drum, and this listing included several posts in the thread giving much info on the drum, and also a link to a Photobucket page and also links for a couple Youtube videos. This was very elaborate documentation of this drum, more than what is usually seen here or on ebay.

After several days, TommyP deleted the thread the last day, as in his view it violated policy due to the auction nature of the offering. As I was trying to be fair to all the 6 members who expressed interest in the drum, I continued the offering privately in PMs. After I re-read TommyP’s PMs to me, I decided there was a need for me to be more compliant to his moderation and about 30 minutes before the end of this ‘auction’, I ended the auction and asked a price of $440 (inc. shipping). By the time the auction would have ended, Behindthebeat was the highest bidder at 300, though 330 had been conditionally offered. Upon our discussing it with PMs and emails, there was attempted negotiation on my part to meet me half way between his 300 and my 440. I was expecting more than 300 shipped (as evident by my asking 440), and Behindthebeat was not moving on his $300 offer (as nobody outbid it). I had no choice but to eat $140 because I had no time to offer this on Ebay and needed the money for rent and child support (I have been unemployed for 6 weeks). He PPed the 300 and I sent him the drum.

A couple days later, he is now claiming that I misrepresented the drum as failing to mention that every lug had at least one screw post broken. After trading a couple emails, he has now opened a Paypal dispute and Paypal has frozen my account, seeking another $50 refunded.

I have denied misrepresenting this drum, as I mentioned that this may need some lug replacements. One thing that shapes our discussion is that he really is interested in this being a collector, though I have represented this drum as a players drum. This (new needed parts to make it a collector) was his justification for essentially chewing me down and force me to take $140 less than what I was seeking. I really appreciate that we made the sale so that I can use the funds to help pay rent and pay child support, despite my having to settle for $140 less than I believe it was worth. It is obvious that I pretty much bent over backwards to make this deal. I moved $140 and he moved $0. I chalk it up as both him and I benefitting from a lack of any ebay fees; and it saved me the time it would have required on ebay. Though it was very frustrating to put so much work into this drum and and only essentially get $270 for it, I am trying to just move on.

It is perceived that behindthebeat feels that this drum is not worth his $300. He claims that it is a $300 drum that is not playable because he cannot tension up the heads because of the broken lugs. He claims I did not tension the heads because of the issues with the screw posts on the lugs. My response: The heads were not tensioned up simply because I did not have the time, nor interest in tuning this up. The lack of tension of the heads had absolutely nothing to do with the condition of the lugs. I was not going to play and own this drum. When I bought this drum it was tensioned and tuned up and had no issues at all. It sounded good to me, though I know with that brand new head it will sound better. What I said about possible need for replacement was for the hypothetical case where any lugs had issues with the security of their mounting, not because some of them may have broken screw posts. I said "may" because of that possibility, not because of some of them being broken. I would not use the word "may" if it had anything to do with some standard of lugs having screw posts completely in tact. That is simply logical as it is as easy as looking at them to see the condition of the screw posts. These lugs are notorious for this issue, and this was never presented as being free of this issue.

The challenge in settling this dispute and addressing/investigating behindthebeat’s claim is that the elaborate, informative thread is unfortunately permanently deleted.

Those who know about this drum offering, as well as anyone with a good Rogers background, please comment on an acceptable and reasonable value of this drum. Should I just give in another $50 or should behindthebeat be happy with what he got for his $300. Each lug had atleast one screwpost broken, and some had both screw posts broken, though every lug was adequately attached to the shell.

Though the thread has been deleted, the videos and photobucket page is still available, as they were also part of the description.

Photos - http://s1258.photobucket.com/albums/ii527/drummerjohn333/?start=all

and the vids - [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vL0-uMwG_g[/ame]

and ([ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LD0BhZ_kRY&feature=relmfu[/ame]) though I don’t think this one has much at all to do with this specific dispute.

I really wish this could be resolved in private, and frankly wish there was no issue to resolve at all (especially after I bent over backwards to make this deal – financially). Unfortunately I feel I need to get some help here as I honestly feel that I am being taken advantage of. I am wondering how Paypal is going to factor in to this, as I have never had a Paypal dispute before. (ebay $100 rating with 140 FBs in the last 12mos.) I am just trying to pay rent and child support with the money from this drum. I have already sacrificed $140 to make this deal go down, and feel this drum is most likely worth more than $280, or, (more fairly and accurately) more than the $300 as that was his out-of-pocket cost.

BTW, I have had to go out of state to make some money this week and may not be able to respond to this thread until the end of the day or even the end of the night. It is a very demanding gig requiring a lot of time and focus.

Thanks,

John