Hey Dan,
Our host, Brian, is a master of fixing helmets with problems, and I recall him saying that sometimes it is better to go with the better helmet in the first place. I was thinking about your question on ebay sellers, and there are a few things that we have learned about judging ebay sellers, feedback is important, if you encounter someone with negative feed back, read the feed back and then check the feedback of the member who left thenegative comment, there are some people out there that will leave unwarrented negative comments. Zero or very low feedback is something to pay very close attention to, a seller with a high ticket item and no feed back is probably not honest, copy their discription of their item and google it, and often you will be suprised to find the first hit is a web site where the item is featured, many of our members have found an image and discription of an item they own, offered on ebay. Private feedback is another red flag, why are they hiding their feed back from a buyer, one must assume that it is because they have something they do not want you to see, and hidder bidder's IDs are another red flag, if a seller is selling dodgey items, they sure do not want a buyers friends emailing them that they are bidding of something that is not good. Bear in mind, these conditions do not gaurentee that the seller is bad, (other than finding the offered item on another web site not owned by the seller) but these conditions mean that you need to be cautious, the first thing to do when you wish to bid on a high ticket item is to request a spacific additional photo, if the item is not owned by the seller, he will write that his camera is broken, or only his son knows how to use the camera, any excuse for not getting additional photos is cause to back away from the sale. On spiked helmets (and Joe will back this one up) be sure to look at the back of the Wappen, some reproduction Wappens look exact from the front, but the back can show that they were not produced by a stamping process. Check markings to make sure that they match the Wappen, there are many members that can tell of their head if markings are correct (I have to look them up).
If any one can come up with any other suggestions on judging ebay sellers and auctions, throw them in.
Again, welcome, we look forward to you haveing a great experiance.
Gus
