David Yurman authenticity question.

[allivant]

I bought a ring for my wife on eBay. I wanted to see if there are any DY experts that can help me figure out it''s authenticity. I believe it''s legit since the seller''s feedback was 99.4% with over a thousand transactions. There were two negatives in the past year out of over 500. Here are some pictures I just took. Sorry for the quality. Please let me know what you all think.


DY#1
DY#2
DY#3

 

[oobiecoo]

Well, the fact that the seller has THOUSANDS of transactions makes me a little unsure about the authenticity. Usually sellers like this will buy fakes in bulk and re-sell them. Did you pay much less than the regular retail price?

 

[denverappraiser]

The ebay feedback system is a curiously complicated system for making decisions. It’s not nearly as obvious as it seems at first blush. For starters, the vast majority of buyers are unsophisticated when it comes to identifying merchandise. That is to say, they wouldn’t know a fake it if hit them in the head and when they get their purchase and it’s pretty they leave a positive feedback. A big feedback number is decent evidence that you will get SOMETHING when you buy it but I’m not convinced you learn much about whether it’s genuine.

Lets assume a hypothetical vendor who is selling fake widgets for $100 that are reasonably convincing. That’s little enough that it doesn’t usually pay for the customer to hire an expert to authenticate the piece and it’s reasonable to expect that none will do so. 95% of the buyers are simply going to accept it, post their feedback and move on. Of those other 5, some will simply be unhappy for reasons other than genuineness, like the size is wrong, and want to return it. They take the return and that’s a positive feedback. A couple buyers may be experts themselves and they’ll want to return it because it’s fake. Fine, they take the return, feign ignorance, blame it on their supplier and issue the return promptly and with a smile. That’ll result in a positive as well. Presto, that’s 100%.

As oobiecoo points out, there’s an interesting clue in the volume of the seller. DY only sells through authorized dealers. Any consumer who buys something from them is welcome to resell their things for whatever they want and you do see this happening on ebay but one thing you don’t see is someone who has a thousand pieces for sale over the span of years. That’s a dealer, and if the prices are seriously out of line you can bet it’s not an authorized dealer. If they’re not authorized, they’re not getting their supplies directly from the manufacturer and this begs the question of who, other than the manufacturer, is able to supply a steady stream of hundreds or thousands of identical items?

It’s important to read the actual content of the feedbacks. A lot of the big sellers are actually estate liquidators who are selling on behalf of individuals and this observation doesn’t apply. They may have sold 1000 things in the last month but they will be everything from jewelry to bicycles. It’s rather like the traditional auction house environment. It doesn’t mean that things are genuine, and often they aren’t, but the odds go up. It''s nice if they sell a lot of postcards to happy customers but this doesn''t make them a jewelry (or even a postcard) expert.

Neil Beaty
GG(GIA) ICGA(AGS) NAJA
Professional Appraisals in Denver

 

[allivant]

Retail is $625. I paid a little less than $400.

Here is the seller's feedback/store.
http://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewFeedback2&userid=jackelen&&ftab=FeedbackAsSeller&iid=390016270567&sspagename=VIP:feedback:2:us

 

[oobiecoo]

Her auctions look fairly legit and she mentioned a "display case" so it looks like she may have her own boutique set up somewhere. You might want to take it to a David Yurman store to have it checked out though.

 

[denverappraiser]

The ad contains the following in the terms and conditions:

“No returns based on authenticity since all items are guaranteed to be 100% authentic as listed.”

“I am not an authorized David Yurman dealer, seller or affiliated with David Yurman in any way.”

Apparently her definition of guaranteed authentic is because SHE says so and you are specifically prohibited from challenging that claim. For me that would be a deal killer.

Neil Beaty
GG(GIA) ICGA(AGS) NAJA
Professional Appraisals in Denver

 

[neatfreak]

Date: 12/16/2008 8:59:43 AM
Author: denverappraiser
The ad contains the following in the terms and conditions:


“No returns based on authenticity since all items are guaranteed to be 100% authentic as listed.”


“I am not an authorized David Yurman dealer, seller or affiliated with David Yurman in any way.”


Apparently her definition of guaranteed authentic is because SHE says so and you are specifically prohibited from challenging that claim. For me that would be a deal killer.


Neil Beaty

GG(GIA) ICGA(AGS) NAJA

Professional Appraisals in Denver

Big Ditto. There are so many fake DY sellers on ebay, it''s not worth it for a $200 savings IMO.

 

[allivant]

Date: 12/16/2008 8:59:43 AM
Author: denverappraiser
The ad contains the following in the terms and conditions:


“No returns based on authenticity since all items are guaranteed to be 100% authentic as listed.”


“I am not an authorized David Yurman dealer, seller or affiliated with David Yurman in any way.”


Apparently her definition of guaranteed authentic is because SHE says so and you are specifically prohibited from challenging that claim. For me that would be a deal killer.

Yeah, that sketched me out a little. I planned on taking it to a DY store but I realized there aren't any around here except authorized sellers. I'm wondering how knowledgeable and helpful they'd be if I brought in something I didn't buy there in the first place.