SP Doesn't Do Extra Pictures Anymore?

[cosmicfolklore]

Pick a Pete Box Pass. Hey, there’s some mileage in that. Sign up 12 guys, first guy chooses his pipe and then sends the remaining 11 to the next guy who gets a 10% discount and so on. The last guy gets a pipe for free

That works till the first guy who gets the box just keeps the whole box and tosses his burner phone.

 

[Ahi Ka]

That works till the first guy who gets the box just keeps the whole box and tosses his burned phone.

Yeah but he will be back on the forum in a couple of years to start a new one

 

[mikethompson]

I didn't think this thread would take off the way it has, but here we are.

 

[lordofthepiperings]

I’ve noticed it for quite some time. Anything $100 and under usually has two side shots that’s it. When you hit about $300 you get overhead of the bowl and underside too. Maybe a close up of the shank or adornments.

I honestly never gave it much thought myself.

 

[craig61a]

I’ve been buying estate pipes from SP for several years now.

I guess I never really paid all that much attention to the number of pictures. It always seemed in the past that there 4-5 pics.

More recently I’ve noticed that estate pipes go at the top of the mark pricewise.

I’ve purchased several estate pipes this year. One was sent back because of an unmentioned flaw in the chamber. Others have had issues that were not mentioned.

I just received an E. Andrew Canadian that mentioned some chamber issues. When I got it the chamber was in fairly good shape. Other than sanding the chamber lightly, it wasn’t too bad. One thing that was never mentioned was that the nomenclature was almost non existent. Another pipe had a stem that looked like it had been soaked in bleach but never sanded smooth. That was not noted either.

Of course I could send them back, but that’s a PITA. When I sent back the one pipe, the money was refunded, but then I got an email scolding me about scratches on the bit. I had the pipe out of the box for probably 10-15 minutes tops before I resealed it and posted back to returns. I certainly didn’t stick it in my mouth and start chopping on it.

There several other estate sellers who provide more photos and more accurate descriptions and have more reasonable prices… I think I’m done with SP estates…

 

[craig61a]

I’m going to send back the E.Andrew and wash my hands of SP’s estates…

 

[Uguccione]

Beyond the cost of storage space for all these images

It would be enough to delete the ads of the pipes sold. I hate to see the photos of a beautiful pipe and then read that it was sold a century ago.

 

[ParkitoATL]

It would be enough to delete the ads of the pipes sold. I hate to see the photos of a beautiful pipe and then read that it was sold a century ago.

I actually love that they keep them listed because people will list pipes with crappy photos and a quick search will usually show a couple of similar pipes that have gone through SmokingPipes' estates, with crisp, clean photos for comparison.

 

[mingc]

The amount of time involved in listing an estate pipe is much longer than we take into consideration. Each pipe requires a thorough cleaning and inspection, before it gets to the photographer.

I, recently helped a fellow catalogue his Fathers pipe collection. Well over 300 pipes. That would be about 300 hours of labor just for the cleaning and polishing.

When I had the website we posted six images of each pipe. About three minutes to photograph each pipe, and another five to edit each image.

Loading the images, detailing all the dimensions, condition, etc was at least another five minutes per pipe.

The only difference between an estate and new pipe is the cleaning time.

Look at how many pipes smoking pipes lists per upload. For what they do a team is needed to get everything done on time and done well.

The descriptions posted are well done and concise.

Time is money. Someone needs to go to the inventory room, find the pipe you've asked about, bring it back to their desk, take a photo of what you've asked about, send the image to you, wait for a confirmation you've received the image /s, and then return the item to inventory.

If the retailer has 100 pipes, it's not a big deal ..... if they have a few thousand, it's a different story.

And that is how a successful company always gets taken over by bean counters. Samsara.