That Guy's Back On Ebay.

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I've got Sheri's Saturn V still sitting in the box. I've bought some supplemental parts for detailing from Oz Models which include fuel line fairings, engine cut-off sensor fairings, retro rocket fairings, ullage rockets and fairings and auxiliary propulsion system module fairings. In addition, I bought a detail set from New Ware for the CSM. This set was initially meant for the 1/48th plastic version, so it has some parts that I won't/can't use including the details for the CM without the BPC, the high gain antenna, engine nozzle etc. This set is created using both resin and metal etched parts with lots of detail for the SM. Yum, yum. I think this will be my next build.
 
And yes, thank you George for the positive impact and demonstration of your passion for this hobby!! Thank you! :D:wink::cheers::handshake:
 
Woody's Workshop said:
After first reading this thread, I went an looked at it on Ebay.
While checking on facebook today, low and behold, an add for this puppy pops up in the middle of my timeline.
I guess he's really pushing to sell one, lol.
Click to expand...

No, that's just eBay running ads on Facebook. They often display an ad for something that you recently viewed on eBay. I see a lot of ads for things we sell. :)

-- Roger
 
This "kit" is an unfortunate and seemingly irresistible persistent delusion of the seller. It has appeared numerous times over the last few years, along with "enlarged" versions of a number of kits that show photos of the original kit but never any pictures of the supposedly upscaled components. The periodic appearance of these kits on ebay coincides with the seller's waxing and waning mental status. In each recurrence the "seller" quickly develops negative feedback and has his ID rendered invalid by ebay.

With regard to the Saturn 1b, the lister has, indeed, produced a couple of parts over the years, primarily some cut tubes as shown in the pictures, but nothing resembling a finished model, let alone a kit. The photo he shows of a command module nosecone is from the Sirius 1/64 kit. The mold for the service module is a poor impression from the Sirius version of the same piece. The "working launch escape system with a ceramic nozzle" has been imagined, and repeatedly mentioned, but has never been built or even drawn. The centering rings in the photos do not correspond at all to the tubes in the photos. There has never been an appearance of fins, wraps, motor mounts, etc. The seller is not a model rocketeer and has never built or flown a Saturn 1b, let alone the one being offered in the auction.

He has done similar imaginary offerings for RC airplane kits and about a year ago ran an unsuccessful kickstarter campaign to fund the purchase of tools he thought he needed to build the Saturn 1b he is once again offering. His grandiose comments about providing a model to The Big Bang Theory seem to be an important part of the delusion as they have been repeated persistently.

I do not believe the seller is malicious so much as a very unfortunate man with a very tenuous grip on reality.
 
Last edited:
Gus said:
This "kit" is an unfortunate and seemingly irresistible persistent delusion of the seller. It has appeared numerous times over the last few years, along with "enlarged" versions of a number of kits that show photos of the original kit but never any pictures of the supposedly upscaled components. The periodic appearance of these kits on ebay coincides with the seller's waxing and waning mental status. In each recurrence the "seller" quickly develops negative feedback and has his ID rendered invalid by ebay.

With regard to the Saturn 1b, the lister has, indeed, produced a couple of parts over the years, primarily some cut tubes as shown in the pictures, but nothing resembling a finished model, let alone a kit. The photo he shows of a command module nosecone is from the Sirius 1/64 kit. The mold for the service module is a poor impression from the Sirius version of the same piece. The "working launch escape system with a ceramic nozzle" has been imagined, and repeatedly mentioned, but has never been built or even drawn. The centering rings in the photos do not correspond at all to the tubes in the photos. There has never been an appearance of fins, wraps, motor mounts, etc. The seller is not a model rocketeer and has never built or flown a Saturn 1b, let alone the one being offered in the auction.

He has done similar imaginary offerings for RC airplane kits and about a year ago ran an unsuccessful kickstarter campaign to fund the purchase of tools he thought he needed to build the Saturn 1b he is once again offering. His grandiose comments about providing a model to The Big Bang Theory seem to be an important part of the delusion as they have been repeated persistently.

I do not believe the seller is malicious so much as a very unfortunate man with a very tenuous grip on reality.
Click to expand...

Sounds vaguely familiar. Is this guy's name "Austin"?
 
I think Sheri was a military spouse. She is not involved in rocketry any more. I believe her name war Sheri Ward.
 
Supposedly towards "the end" she sold a few kits and did not deliver. Don't know what it is with rocketry related vendors, but it seems quite a few go out that way.
 
Gus said:
He has done similar imaginary offerings for RC airplane kits and about a year ago ran an unsuccessful kickstarter campaign to fund the purchase of tools he thought he needed to build the Saturn 1b he is once again offering. His grandiose comments about providing a model to The Big Bang Theory seem to be an important part of the delusion as they have been repeated persistently.

I do not believe the seller is malicious so much as a very unfortunate man with a very tenuous grip on reality.
Click to expand...

The Big Bang Theory comment is quite interesting. I thought about it quite a bit and wondered why he would provide such a kit to a TV show. One assumes he would build it for them as I can't see anyone associated with the show building it. But why would you sell/give a flying model rocket to a TV show unless they asked you to provide it? And if they really wanted one, wouldn't they build their own or contract with a supplier they could trust to deliver by a specific point in time? And if it is for display in the background of the show wouldn't a good looking model be more important than functionality? Specifically, why display a flying model rocket that will never be flown when you could display a far more accurate display-only model?
 
Yes...a good looking model would be nice!
DSCF3707.JPG
 
tmacklin said:
Yes...a good looking model would be nice!
DSCF3707.JPG
Click to expand...

WOW:eyepop: And I mean in a BAD way! Personally I see SO MANY red flags here, that I will not comment on, because some will not think it's a red flag. Is this the image she used in her avatar?
From this image, I believe she would fit right in down at the TWIN PEAKS, Waco, Tx.:wink:
 
Back in the day, this was advertising. Cut to the chase at 58 seconds in.

[video=youtube;tAbGW3i3LM0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAbGW3i3LM0[/video]
 
Gus said:
This "kit" is an unfortunate and seemingly irresistible persistent delusion of the seller. It has appeared numerous times over the last few years, along with "enlarged" versions of a number of kits that show photos of the original kit but never any pictures of the supposedly upscaled components. The periodic appearance of these kits on ebay coincides with the seller's waxing and waning mental status. In each recurrence the "seller" quickly develops negative feedback and has his ID rendered invalid by ebay.

With regard to the Saturn 1b, the lister has, indeed, produced a couple of parts over the years, primarily some cut tubes as shown in the pictures, but nothing resembling a finished model, let alone a kit. The photo he shows of a command module nosecone is from the Sirius 1/64 kit. The mold for the service module is a poor impression from the Sirius version of the same piece. The "working launch escape system with a ceramic nozzle" has been imagined, and repeatedly mentioned, but has never been built or even drawn. The centering rings in the photos do not correspond at all to the tubes in the photos. There has never been an appearance of fins, wraps, motor mounts, etc. The seller is not a model rocketeer and has never built or flown a Saturn 1b, let alone the one being offered in the auction.

He has done similar imaginary offerings for RC airplane kits and about a year ago ran an unsuccessful kickstarter campaign to fund the purchase of tools he thought he needed to build the Saturn 1b he is once again offering. His grandiose comments about providing a model to The Big Bang Theory seem to be an important part of the delusion as they have been repeated persistently.

I do not believe the seller is malicious so much as a very unfortunate man with a very tenuous grip on reality.
Click to expand...
I'd really, really appreciate it if you didn't make assumptions about the mental health of strangers.
 
In replying to Gus:
Zeroignite said:
I'd really, really appreciate it if you didn't make assumptions about the mental health of strangers.
Click to expand...

You have a good point.

But Gus obviously has seen this person's offerings on eBay thru the years, the history of how things end up, and noted things the rest of us did not know about the pics and other things. And Gus knows scale models very well. He's scratch built some darned good ones and he knows Apollo.

Also, FWIW, IRL, Gus is an ER Doctor. No joke. So while psychiatry may not be his specialty, he's way more knowledgeable about such an observation than the typical internet commenter (An ER doc needs to be able to evaluate the mental condition of patients that come thru the door, as part of an overall medical evaluation.).

And I do not recall Gus trash-talking anyone. I do not think he said any of that lightly or out of ill intent.

- George Gassaway
 
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Zeroignite said:
I'd really, really appreciate it if you didn't make assumptions about the mental health of strangers.
Click to expand...
And I would really, really appreciate it if you didn't assume the person being discussed is a stranger to me. I posted what I posted in the hopes that people would realize this person is not an idiot and he is not a scammer. He has some significant issues and it would be kinder if people did not tweak him.

George, as always, your confidence in me and friendship means the world to me.
 
Okay. As someone who is mentally unstable, it's a bit of a touchy thing with me. Just, tired of seeing "that person must be insane" used towards anyone the speaker doesn't like online. Sorry for the derail.
 
Indeed, the individual in question has made the news after filing more than a dozen unsuccessful lawsuits against a former employer and being arrested for allegedly stealing a plane and making vague threats about crashing it. I share the opinion that he is more on the mentally unwell end of the spectrum than a crafty con-artist.
 
Really sad.

First and foremost for that guy.

Also, trying to walk a fine line between leaving him alone, but making others aware that if they buy, others have in the past without getting what they paid for, so if they buy they may never get anything.

I am curious how a person keeps getting multiple new accounts on eBay? IIRC, a seller has to have a credit card or Paypal which is linked to a credit card or bank account. I would figure that eBay would not allow the same person with the same name to create new accounts, after getting such bad feedback. So I figure he must be doing so under a new alias name not just for their eBay account, but for a new credit card, bank account, or something else under a fake name which is supposed to be hard to do (legally anyway) regarding financial transactions.

- George Gassaway
 
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georgegassaway said:
anything.

I am curious how a person keeps getting multiple new accounts on eBay?
- George Gassaway
Click to expand...

Quite simple actually:

Years ago I started getting notes from E-bay buyers wondering where the 4000.00 guitars were they bought from me...Huh. I do rockets not musical instruments. Sent the fraud dept all the notes & was told not to worry...no way....impossible to hack my account.
Week later get E-mail asking me to check my account for message & call them.
Go online my account is shut down till further notice, so how the heck am I going to deal with it.....morons.

Walked across the street...."borrowed" neighbors junk mail & put it back latter. Opened new account using that info, logged in called and found out what happened. Foreign hackers stole my account to collect big money for non existent guitars. Anyhow I asked the EB morons how they expected me to check in when my account was blocked...duh. When I told them what I did...once again was told impossible...well ya better check how I'm signed in moron.

It's much easier to fake an account than most think. I'm not even a computer guy, just used common sense & some American ingenuity.
Real computer guys can have a field day.

Now don't go asking what I did....that's not happening. LOL But it was real easy & simple.
 
I just wanted to say thanks to Gus and George for being helpful on this issue as well as being respectful to the person offering this kit. I think it is quite clear that we should steer clear of this vendor, but no need to bad mouth him now that we have a better idea of the situation.
 
Since this person is clever enough to obtain multiple accounts on Ebay, that fact suggests that he may be crazy like a fox rather than mentally unstable. There's one sure way to find out...send the money.
 
^ you first! But I'd recommend you save your money for a life raft......LOL!
(How ya doin' Ted? I owe you a packet of jokes!)
 
Has anyone reported him to eBay as a potentially fraudulent account?
 
fyrwrxz said:
^ you first! But I'd recommend you save your money for a life raft......LOL!
(How ya doin' Ted? I owe you a packet of jokes!)
Click to expand...

I'm doing fine Dave. In fact, I'm just jolly jack splendid! :pc:
 
Zeus-cat said:
I just wanted to say thanks to Gus and George for being helpful on this issue as well as being respectful to the person offering this kit. I think it is quite clear that we should steer clear of this vendor, but no need to bad mouth him now that we have a better idea of the situation.
Click to expand...

Most of the credit goes to Steven for creating the thread to begin with.

And it turned out that Gus is VERY aware of this person's background and history, some of which he posted here and a lot he left out since it's not relevant to this thread.
 
georgegassaway said:
Most of the credit goes to Steven for creating the thread to begin with.

And it turned out that Gus is VERY aware of this person's background and history, some of which he posted here and a lot he left out since it's not relevant to this thread.
Click to expand...

Thank you George. Gus really did share insightful info for us. Very interesting. Always nice to have people be made aware of these situations.
 
He has this listed this morning. ENLARGED Phoenix missile rocket kit, 15% over Estes for E or F power. Tempted to buy now at 36.98 just to see what I get. Hell I spend more than that on launching a single rocket.
 

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