I'm still waiting for the grilled cheese sandwich with the image of Jesus Christ that I paid $25,000 for. Boy it's gonna taste good!

It goes really good with a red wine. Dark red.
Make sure the sandwich is made with unleavened bread.

There is a new scammer on eBay. Well, not really new, but they are, shall we say, "overly proud" of their magic tricks.

Their latest offering is a large Morrissey Chop Cup for the low starting bid of $29.99. That's US dollars. It does include free shipping.

A quick trip to the Morrissey web site reveals that the price of the cup is $29.50. That's Canadian Dollars. This is $26.17 USD.

That means that you can get the cup from Morrissey for the same amount that you can buy it on eBay. Shipping will be about the same from Canada as the difference in the price.

If this gets bid up any more, though, the fellow who made the first bid will overpay for the cup.

It pays to do a search on EVERY new item you see on eBay. I've seen the Buddha chop cup from Fantasma at a starting bid of $169.50. It lists for $150.00.

I don't want to rain on any parade but I'd like to remind everyone of what Bill has already said, do your homework.

I've made some very good purchases on eBay at very reasonable prices. I bought a set of Johnson cups after another magician finally bit the bullet and bought Sherwoods and his Johnsons just collected dust.

I just bought some copper Bazar de Magia cups from an ebay store with good feedback. However, minutes ago, I got a message from the seller that when they pulled my package to ship it, they found it was aluminum cups in a box marked copper. Their distributor is out of copper cups, too. I'm now back ordered for at least three weeks.

I'm off to check if they're still listing copper cups.

If they are telling the truth then you really did get lucky. I can easily see a distributor not looking inside the box. Your's did.

I agreed to wait for my cups and suggested they remove further listings for copper cups until they have them.

I got another response back thanking me and saying they'd remove their current listing.

Now I can only wait and see.

Very little chaps me more than a person who lists something on ebay that they do not actually have. I purchase magic sets just for the cups and balls sets. Don't get me wrong. I don't cannibalize good, rare magic sets just to feed my addiction. So, I purchased a magic set from a kid in Canada. I always pay immediately. I sent him a message asking for an invoice, and did not hear from him for a week. So I finally sent him a message that explained that I wanted to get this transaction over with, and that the courtesy of a reply would be nice.

He told me he couldn't find the instructions. I replied that I didn't need the instructions. I told him to take all of the tricks out of the box, put them in a small box and send them to me. Instead, he packed up the whole thing in a big box, and it cost more to ship it than the magic set did.

Weird.

Sometimes it pays to read feedback very carefully, even if all of it is positive.

Its number 26 on the list.

http://www.bobrivers.com/audiovault/tunes/tunestop30.asp

The latest offender in the cups and balls nonsense poll is a fellow who calls himself luv2havfun. His listing reads:

FRED KAPS CUPS AND BALLS DAI VERNON Michael Ammar RARE

Now, there are three lies in this line. They are as follows:
1) Dai Vernon had nothing to do with this routine.
2) Michael Ammar had nothing to do with this routine.
3) It isn't "rare." Just to prove this, I purchased one this morning from Denny and Lee.

The first two points mean that this listing is what they call "celebrity name spamming." He knows about this, because I have sent him a message about it.

The third means that the seller is a liar or an ignoramus.

But you don't have to fall for his bogus listing.

Well, the eBay bandits are at it again.

One has a set of the Original Phoenix Cups up with a starting bid of $125.00. He says he paid $250 for them a couple of years ago, and calls them "Bertram Style Cups."

Here's the burn. The ones that people paid $250 for had a Certificate of Authenticity with them. He "lost" his. So, they are not worth as much.

Another clever entrepreneur has purchased some of the bathroom tumblers from Wal-Mart and wants $30 for them. Nice try. If you want some of these go to Wal-Mart. You can get the same set for about $20.00.

I almost got cought! tanks for aswer my pm bill,i didn't know it was in here.
those bathroom tumblers looks like a real cups for the cups and balls!!

It is forums like these and looking out for each others "Six" taht will help us overcome the Scammers.

One does not ofbject to paying fair value for good product as advertised.

Getting bent over the barrell... that is a different matter.

Here's another. There is a fellow who is selling what is purported to be some nice brass cups. The photo is doctored. The photo is the same cup three times. Not only that, he fails to mention that they are by Trickmaster. And he included a free trick that was a knockoff of one of Tom Ladshaw's items.

I should add this -- after I sent a message to the seller that I was disappointed about the knockoff trick and the Trickmaster cups, he offered to make a refund. I told him I appreciated it, but I would keep them anyway. After all, how can I complain about a set of overpriced, junky cups, if I don't have a set in the museum?

Bill, I've got a nice set of IMPROMTU® paper cups left over from a birthday party and I'll sell 'em to you really cheap!


Chris

I hate to tell you about this, Chris, but those are knockoffs of the original Dixie® cups.

These are not to be confused with the Dixie® Chicks, even though they share some of the same characteristics.

What the cups are you guys talking about??

Just paper cups. The original paper drinking cups were called Dixie® cups. We would have put smileys in but we thought everyone would get the joke.

Bill, here above the Mason Dixon line we call those Cups of the Southern Transgression.