Dear friends, I am selling a genuine 2 headjoints rosewood and silver keyed Mozani hallmarked 1813. Its up on ebay as per the above number. Please do not send any email using this thread, complete on line using ebay. Needs to go to a good home. 
I’d like to urge the utmost caution in regard to this item. Mr Hodgson is a first time poster on C&F, yet we are “friends”. He is a first time seller on Ebay. He requests us to contact him outside the Ebay system. He offers the instrument for a starting bid of 0.99GBP.
Terry
Thanks Terry.
funny thing is that his email is:trustyd.
even if it’s all legit, never hurts to act with caution when you are dealing with a new ebay member, maybe thru that escrow service (it that what it’s called, where they act as a middle men)?
Dear Friends, using this term Terry Mcgee as although we are new to ebay, you were once, we are in fact a sincere and well established company. You can urge caution but the fact remains that the flute is real and genuine and if anyone wanted to buy it outside of the Ebay system they can at any time. Our contact details are on the system, telephone numbers, etc. We give a fully detailed invoice and have sold instruments for many years. Our listing is true, but where do you start with a Monzani. The fact that we started it at 99p means and suggests nothing, only the ebayers who dont know the system would start at £2000 and pay Ebay considerable fees just for listing. So starting at 99p is called business, as you and we all know that the flute will make its price irrespective of the starting price. There is always much confusion with ebay and expensive items such as this, the trade cry shame and dont trust em, whereas we are providing a service to collectors worldwide, who would otherwise never see this flute. Oh and by the way, we have in fact 5000+ positive feedbacks over 3 companies, so our email “trustyd@uk2.net” is a new email address established for a new company. Anyway, enough of the rambling, please all take a look and if you are in any doubt of our credibility, honesty or integrity, please dont bid as we dont need your business. John.
I think despite the location in London, John’s first language is not English. 
Whatever works though. Thanks for the caution, Terry. And John, best of luck selling the flute at a fair price, whatever that may be.
Dear fellow flute enthusiasts, thanks for the 20+ emails, sorry about the 2 that were from ‘the jealous ones’. We shall post more pictures of the rear keys as requested, this will be done tomorrow, all serious enquiries will be replied to. As for the comments about our English, its not really in the spirit of the forum and might actually be offensive to some (in fact the member is borderline personal insult), although as a trader in town (London) you have to be thick skinned, so petty throw away jibes, well enough said…Benetton made a fortune from bad press, so tell all your flute friends to read this thread, we welcome the publicity the bad comments give. WE PROVIDE FULL INVOICE, MONEY BACK GUARANTEE, NO CONDITIONAL SALES. We stand by our reputation. We are not interested in trading personal insults, very amateur, very insincere. John
I guess where I got queazy was when I simply put the business name into a google search of businesses…and found nothing. Not a phone book listing, not an address to coincide…nothing.
I was more interested to see what else these boys had in stock…but couldn’t locate their establishment.
Isn’t that odd for a long-standing business?
I suppose I should just ask Tony Bingham. He’d know them for sure (or not?)
John, there are tons of rip-off artists on the net and we have to be shrewd. So if you got upset about a couple skeptics you have only raised more eyebrows. I’m sure most of us are sorry you fail our skepticism but not a whole lot if our money is still in our bank.
Cheers,
Aaron
John, I suppose it would be easier if I just asked you:
Where is your store located and how do I find it?
Have you a list of other flutes available?
I found him on the web, and by the looks of him I wouldn’t mess with him…
Jon
http://www.john-hodgson.com/home.htm
Like the humour, proves that the forum does have a couple of happy people. We wont waste anymore our time proving we are genuine people. We have had 5 calls from the USA and London, these guys have been reassured and a couple of meetings are arranged for Friday where the flute will be shown. Theres no scam, no dodgy deals, no ebay fraud. If the cynics wish to perpetuate the myth of some major flute scandal involving The International Flute Fraudster Syndicate (joke), then thats fine, we shall still sell the flute for whatever it goes for, bank details and the provenance of where the flute came from will be provided so buyer can check the history. This will be our last post, although we are sure to have more Forum skirmishes in the future when more flutes go up. Best wishes to all on Chiff & Fipple, good luck if you bid on the auction and those that see green, well another time. John
Wow I just guessed who it is… the clues are all there the use of ‘we’ and ‘our’ owner of lots of fabulous antiques… slightly old fashioned english… It has to be the Queen.
Gosh who would of thought her majesty would be an ebayer.
(Stands, salutes to the the strains of “God Save the Queen” and falls over.)
AndrewK was the Queen???
Wow! I can’t wait for this one to hit the papers. 
Perhaps even more surprisingly, Herself (or Herself’s webmaster, someone who knows a good reverse-lookup engine for UK phone numbers could figure this out) resides in East Sussex, and has a predilection for replacing vowels with “y”.
Easily determined anytime you want more info about an ebay seller, and they are not trying too hard to disguise their origins:
-
- determine image hosting source (right click images)
- visit site & whois
- lather, rinse, repeat
heck, all I wanted was an address or a list of flutes.
why couldn’t he give me that? even privately?
strange man
What puzzles me is who is behind the persona of John Hodgson, a la ebay id specialytie?
All these new seller’s items have images hosted on http://www.antyque.com, which is the site of a registered limited company in East Sussex. Their ebay id is dynamyc, with a long ebay track record, and all their images are hosted on http://www.dynamyc.com, which is associated with http://www.antyque.com, and both domains owned by the same person, Mr. Mark Anthony Farley, with address the same as that of Antyque Ltd. At least this person may be real. But why create a new ebay id if you got already one being a seller with a successful track record?
He hasn’t a chance now the Floot Slooths are on the case!
I’m more of a Floot Sloth, myself. Hardly practice at all anymore–I think I’ll have buttons made. I imagine something like this:
The more photoshop-savvy amongst us could probably replace the branch with a nice monzani flute. Apropos, as this particular sloth is also antique & no longer made except in replica.
And there is the giant grain of salt with which one should take any utterance of mine.
That’s hilarious.