What Do You Infer From The Term "Remnant Album"?

Hi,
I recently auctioned off a Scott International album on ebay which I took great pains to describe as it had its shortcomings (i.e. duplicate pages, duplicate stamps, writing on pages, etc.). Among the description I described it as a "remnant album".

Someone won the auction, paid for it, and I quickly sent it out nicely packed etc. At that time I gave the buyer positive feedback.

Well, without forewarning, the buyer gave me a "neutral" feedback stating that I did not say any countries were missing. While I suspected some smaller ones were missing, I was not sure and therefore "rightfully or wrongfully" used the "remnant album" term.

What bugs me is until this auction, I have over 1400 100% positive feedbacks. The buyer has 9.

May I have your thoughts on this, and if I screwed up, please let me know.

Thank you!

The term "remnant album" suggests to me that the album contains duplicates and is therefore incomplete. I don't think the buyer has any grounds for a complaint.

The term connotes that someone took remnants of albums and put them together in a binder.

I - with little experience as an ebay buyer, and none as a seller - would have taken (correctly or incorrectly) the term 'remnant album' to be a synonym for 'remainder lot', in which case anything & everything could be missing, including whole countries.

Funny, but I wonder about the difference between 'remnant album' and 'album remnants'; the former could be taken as a complete album with remnants of a collection, whereas the latter sounds like the physical album is in pieces.

In any case, your use of the word 'remnant' in your listing is a strong, well-intentioned red flag, and if the buyer cared about remnants-of-what, s/he could have asked.

Buying a lot with the word 'remnant', and then expecting anything to be complete, seems silly.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

I would avoid using the term 'remnant.' It reminds me too much of 'hinge remnants.'

Mobilman

I think your description is very fair. To me remnant would mean that it has been gone through, therefore stamps and pages would be missing.

Dianne

remnant to me would mean overflow stock and less than pristine items.

I'm not sure that I would understand what the exact meaning of "remnant album" was. And, as you can see in this post, it can have different meanings for different people. I guess you could have just stated "incomplete album"?

However, I think it would be unreasonable to expect someone to list all the countries that were not in the Scott International album as this would vary considerably depending on the particular edition of the album.

I agree with what others have said as to what the term would mean to me - i.e. "leftovers", a "mishmash", etc. But I've been collecting a few years and am a very active collector, not an expert by any means, but reasonably knowledgeable. ebay listings kind of have to be (or should be) written with an un-informed collector in mind. It can be dangerous just to assume that people will know what various terms mean. Of course, that doesn't mean prospective buyers will actually read the description...

Selling what I call left overs on ebay today can be very dangerous as the OP found out. Absolute clarity is a must with buyers today and many many pictures.

Problems arise due to use of cell phones that do not show the full description. Any short comings should be disclosed in item details, description, and pictures.

You were somewhat fortunate that an INAD was not opened and you would have been forced to pay return shipping, plus refund, plus the neutral or negative.

If you are not sure of an item, assume the worst and state so very clearly or bin the item. Partial sets unless full of stamps, are basically no good to anyone unless they are buying to replace some of their missing or damaged pages.

I just read the listing. You sort of mentioned the county issues and I see it did have stamps left after many had been removed. Problem is, the pages to someone starting out are basically no good due to missing countries.

If you call ebay, you may possibly get the neutral removed due to the fact you did mention it in a roundabout way.

Bottom line, some people are going to be a@@holes no matter what. 99.8% of Ebayers are honest and fair. Waste no time worrying about it and move on.

I think you should have been more specific if selling something like that but on the other hand the buyer should have had asked questions if he had them in advance. I guess the lesson here is slight of hand descriptions will get you slight of hand feedback.

Thanks all for your comments. I really tried to be open and honest but obviously the buyer didn't get enough guidance.

I'll let this one go and take a lesson from it. And, I'll stay away from remnant albums.

ENJOY!
Mobilman44

mobilman: I don't think you need to stay away from "remnant albums." But, I also can't recall hearing that term in the 55 years I've been a collector and buyer, but maybe. I think someone else mentioned what I consider to be a more generally used term: "remaindered album."

Remnants to me are what is leftover after everything has been picked through or sold.

Yes, I think this is a good definition, but would suggest that some stamps were taken out of the album, not necessarily album pages.