vicdavies Using Copied Sovereign Images on eBay
eBay seller vicdavies of Wolverhampton, West Midlands, United Kingdom, not only stole our 1932 South African Mint sovereign images without permission, but tried to tell buyers his coins were in absolute mint condition.

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When we wrote this page, this eBay member's feedback was 159; with 100% positive according to eBay.
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Sample Listing

1932 22ct Full Gold Sovereign - the 'last' sovereign
George V (Small Head - SA Mintmark - low mintage)

This is your opportunity to own a
George V (small head) 22ct Gold Full
Sovereign in EF - UNC condition
This coin is extremely collectable.....
Low Mintage
It has an SA mintmark just above the date, meaning that it was minted in Pretoria, South Africa.
This gives it extra value as a collectable coin, as Pretoria was the only mint producing sovereigns in 1932, and far fewer sovereigns (1m) were minted there than in an ordinary year (up to 30m).
The 'Last Sovereign'
Contrary to popular belief, sovereigns were not minted in every year of the 20th century. In fact, 1932 was to be the last year in which sovereigns were minted for some considerable time. There were none issued for Edward VIII, and none for George VI, except for those in the 4-coin gold sets issued for the Coronation in 1937. Similarly none were issued for Elizabeth II until 1957, so that 1932 was the last date of sovereign to be issued for a quarter of a century.
Different Portrait
All George V sovereigns from 1911 to 1928 use the same "first head" portrait, but those issued for the four years from 1929 to 1932 used a new smaller head portrait, making these four years quite desirable from a type-collectors point of view
Happy bidding!

What's Wrong?
We invest a great deal of time, effort, and cost into creating some of the best photographic coin images on the internet. We strongly object when lazy and dishonest people decide to use them without a by your leave or thanks, doing so in competition with us.
Copyright theft is dishonest. We recommend you avoid doing business with dishonest dealers.
This particular eBay seller only our high quality images of a 1932 sovereign, he used them to try to sell his own sovereign without saying it was not the same coin. Anyone viewing the photographs would expect it to be the same, near perfect condition coin, "airbrushed" it to make it look like a supermodel, although we actually replaced our older photograph with a much better, more recent one, which he also stole for his second listing.


It is always possible, even likely, that sellers who steal photographs do not own a similar coin, and have the intention to totally defraud potential buyers.
The vendor is not only cheating us by stealing our copyright images, he is fraudulently or ignorantly misleading and deceiving all potential buyers. Gaining pecuniary advantage by deception is the definition of fraud.

Seller ID	Item Number	Date	Description	Price
vicdavies	230399147319	14th Nov 2009	1932 22ct Full Gold Sovereign - the 'last' sovereign	�0.99
vicdavies	130344111492	16th Nov 2009	1932 22ct Full Gold Sovereign - the 'last' sovereign	�0.99

Price
The seller was asking a starting price of �0.99 each for this listing.
Whatever the items "sell" for, after eBay's greedy 10% selling fees, and possible PayPal charges, the crook may have been much better off selling the coins to us, instead of stealing our photographs.
Item 230400422413 "sold" for �195.03; so vicdavies will get about �175 after fees (ignoring PayPal fees). His buyer may be disappointed to get an ordinary grade coin instead of the minty one in our photograph.

Apology
At least this eBayer had the courtesy and decency to send us an apology:

Hi -

Sorry about using your copyrighted picture in my eBay listing (230400422413 - 1932 22ct Full Gold Sovereign) without asking - it won't happen again!

Cheers
Vic Davies

eBay Guilty of Negligence or Complicity
We will be reporting this example of copyright abuse using our standard Statutory Declaration via the eBay VeRO programme, and wait to see if they chose to action or ignore our report. We look forward to taking legal action against eBay for their negligence and / or complicity if they fail to take down the offending material promptly.

Selling Gold Sovereigns & Other Coins on eBay
We point out that sellers may often get more money, for less effort, by selling to a specialised dealer, such as us, rather than via eBay.

Copyright Notice
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