I agree with Week and Michael - I think I’d be contacting the seller and demanding an Overton NOW or my money back. There’s something really fishy about this deal.
Susan
To my ears it doesn’t. Trust a fellow philosopher to celebrate your 3000th post with a disagreement. 
Congratulations Jim. Keep them rolling. 
I don’t know about ebay, and I don’t know much about Chieftains hi Ds, but I would wait for the Overton. It doesn’t make sense to me to assess one whistle based on how another whistle plays (no matter how similar they are supposed to be).
Me too. I was going to say something earlier but I thought you might have had some kind of guarantee. But, to the best of my knowledge, nobody would offer you a deal like this unless you knew them well and they were helping you out. But then they wouldn’t take your money.
Sounds to me as though you’ve been dudded.
In response to the people alleging high backpressure in Overtons. Yes, in the case of the normal model but no in the case of the new easy blowers. If you don’t want that backpressure, but you do want the great Overton sound, just ring Colin Goldie and he’ll build you what you want. Those people complaining are certainly talking about the standard model, not that it gives me any problems. I move between Overtons and other whistles (eg., Burke, Abell, Sindt or Busman) with ease these days, although I have been playing Overtons, and a lot of them, for a fairly long time now so I suppose I just go into Overton mode when I pick one up.
One thing I will note, I have a Chieftain Low D and love it. No offense to Overton devotees, but I liked it better than the Overton Low D I played more recently. On the other hand, I also got a chance to compare Chieftain high D and Overton high D side-by-side and the Overton was the hands-down superior whistle. This was the aluminum model of Chieftain, not the “gold” so there may be differences there.
What I am getting at is that you really can’t claim that one whistle will play like another when it is a different whistle, from a different maker, different material, different design. If you are pleased with your current whistle, great! If you payed for an Overton, though, make sure that’s what you get.
Also, as a courtesy to other Ebayers, when you leave feedback after the sale, please note that the seller didn’t actually have the product in stock when he sold it. That is probably against Ebay policy, but it is more important that the other bidders be aware that this retailer isn’t necessarily selling what he has up for bid. I do shop on Ebay now and then (and some goof calling himself Musical Priest keeps beating me to the good tabor pipes - is that someone on this board?) and I do read the feedback on sellers. I’m sure a lot of other folks do, too.
-Patrick
I’m the ebay seller in question, when I placed the auction I had a number of overtons on order that should have arrived when the auctions closed. I got the low Ds but the sopranos didn’t show up with the order, I called my supplier and they said they didn’t have any (contrary to what I had been told before running the auction) I offered to send a chieftain so that at least adam would have something to play on while he waits, he’ll get his overton so nobody needs to worry about it. I’ve had a number of problems with this and other suppliers and so I’ve canceled all my auctions and am busy harassing them until I get the items I was promised so that I can ship them out to my customers.
according to ebay policy you can sell an item that isn’t on hand if you can guarantee deliver within 2 weeks, my turnaround time was far less than that until a couple of my suppliers told me they had items in stock that weren’t actually in stock, in some cases one of them told me it would be 2 months before I got the bouzouki that was ordered and paid for. I do put in my auctions that some items may take up to 8 weeks but in most cases I get my merchandise without a hitch.
My apologies for my remark a couple of posts back. You must admit, though, it did sound strange on the face of it.
Thanks for piping in, Illuminatus. I hope you read my post that started this thread, and I hope I made it clear that I appreciate you sending the Chieftain, and do not doubt you.
I also appreciate the concern and advice that others on this group have been supplying about eBay transactions and protecting yourself. Excellent advice in general.
In this case, however (and I’ve been buying stuff on eBay for years), I did believe the seller when he explained the situation to me. I know how hard it can be to get Overton Soprano Ds - practically everyone else I contacted said the wait would be three months and up, so I have to say, after my initial disappointment, I wasn’t too surprised.
As it is, I am starting to get the hang of the Chieftain, and beggining to appreciate it more. But as soon as that Overton arrives, Illuminatus, please do send it on over, as John Cleese would say, “with all speed!”
I want to say as well how appreciative and honered I am to be getting so much great advice, opinions and feedback on this topic from the group. I learn something new with every post.
It’s all good.
Cheers,
Adam
If I remember correctly, that would be Claus von Weiss, but I’m not certain. Claus, is that you?
Power buyer fer sure…
Sankt Claus, do you have the keys of the Vatican? 
This Musical Priest buys a lot of stuff, especially flutes. I hope he’s not using church money! 
like I said in my emails to you before, I’ll priority mail it when I get it. hopefulyy it’ll come in soon.
May I please steer this back to the issue of the Chieftain Gold High D? I just bought one on EBay from illuminatus99 and I was a bit taken aback by it’s lack of playability in the upper octave.
I’ve been playing an O’Riordan Concert D for a number of years in addition to your basic Generation-Sodlum-Oak-Feadog-Clarke-Shaw inexpensive whistles.
Aside from the strong metalic taste of the brass and it’s heavy enough to use as a nightstick, WOW is that upper octave hard to find. Blowing the **** out of it, I was able to find a shriek of a high D, but am I missing something?
What approach should I be taking to find the “sweet spot” that people in earlier posts mentioned?
Thanks for the feedback.
I do not understand the concept of using Ebay as a sales platform for retailers of NEW items. I understand that some are in business selling used things, memorabilia, etc. I noticed that when I posted some sheet music, for example, that there are some very established folks dealing in that area, with business licenses, etc.
I guess its because one doesn’t have their own website and capacity for accepting payment? You placed an order on a wholesale basis, then started auctions to retail your product? Is the idea that somebody who doesn’t know any better will pay more than a fixed price available elsewhere? Is it something to do with importing Overtons that I am missing here? Do the builders of that product know they are being marketed that way?
These are my questions and I am open to being corrected or enlightened. Because it sounds like whistle scalpin’ to me. But there is much to Ebay that I probably don’t know about…
Confused in California.
Many of the “Get rich quick selling on eBay” scheams work in a similar way…
There are huge warehouse wholesalers that will setup an account for you and you can sell bunches of stuff on eBay. When you receive payment (for I assume more than the wholesale price) you then send the smaller amount to the warehouse to pay for the item. The warehouse actually handles all the shipping/handling and you pocket the difference in price (minus th eBay fees). So…you can basically sell stuff on eBay without putting up any money or having any stock on hand.
I do NOT do this or have any plans to, but my Brother-in-Law is always trying to come up with silly (IMO) ways to make money and he told me about this.
-Brett
Very tricky, Brett. Thanks for info.
… slowly creeping out of his hiding place: Yup, you’re absolutely right, Erik, that goof is me, always on the lookout for nice whistles and tabor pipes (no flutes actually, Gauber).
And what should I do with the keys to the Vatican, Zoob, they don’t have any whistles there as far as I know! …Creeping back into his unholy hiding place again, waiting for prey to come along …
Cheers
Claus aka “The Goofy Priest” 
part of it is the cost to build and maintain a website along with the cost of a merchant account to accept credit cards online, many banks charge upwards of $300 or more to start a merchant account plus monthly fees andtransaction fees. it ends up being cheaper to retail on ebay since an ebay store is only $10/month and listing fees aren’t that much.
the other side of it is that no retailer starting out could possibly get as much traffic to their site as they’d get through ebay no matter what they spend on marketing and an ad campaign.
for most ebay retailers they start their auctions at cost which is great for the bidder since there’s a good chance they can get their item at wholesale price but not so great for the seller since they have to push a lot more volume to turn any sort of profit and hope that a few of their items get bid up near retail prices.
for example, I’ve sold a number of irish flutes, I start them at $175 which is my cost, lark in the morning sells the same flute for $350 and hobgoblin sells them for $275. if you’re selling on ebay you’ll hardly sell anything starting at prices that are available elsewhere so you have to start at cost and hope it gets a few bids so you make a couple dollars.
this is similar to what I’ve been doing except that I don’t use drop shipping, all the items are sent to me first and I go over them thoroughly to make sure there’s no defects.