I have just a small collection of Sansevieria. I've always liked them. My mother and Grannie grew them, but not like you guys! Jeez! I doubt that I will ever be spending that kinda dough for one, but I do want to learn their proper names and more about them. I have two very large pots of Mother-in-Laws Tongues that I have had for about 8 years. Started with a clump of four leaves I got from smeone - one pot has bloomed a few times. Really incredible to see them bloom. I have another Sans. that is variegated with yellows. Really nice plant. It was once a big pot too, but got damaged by a pet when I was gone a few days and is slowly recovering. I have a small variety that I have had for twelve years and it is still only about 3 inches tall. Forms a round rosette shaped clump of chubby leaves. I got some this past May from a guy who needed to thin out the plants in his greenhouse as he was emptying it out for the summer. I was having a PLANT SALE in my folks driveway and he stopped and offered the plants. Drove home and brought them back to me. Pretty cool. a good variety of not-too-common plants, and I got several small Sans. Now, I need help identifying them. Heck! Maybe they are all the same kind. Is there a chance that you guys can help me do that? I have one that forms a rosette, and is rather small. I have one that is about 6 inches tall, and the leaves form a long tulip shaped plant.The tips of some of the leaves curl a bit and remind me of a Jack-in-the-Pulpit flower. Really pretty. I will have to more closely examine the others tomorrow. I will look on the internet, too and check out eBay. I can take digital pics, if that will help. Hope you guys can help me ID them. Thanks ~ Annie

I just did a bunch of wardrobe shopping on ebay -- I wear a particular brand/style of shorts and they are discontinued, so went on a bit of an ebay spree to stock up. I found the sellers all over the map. Some were doing auctions, charging a low starting bid and low shipping (the USPS has priority mail flat rate boxes and envelopes so shipping for a pair of shorts shouldn't be more than that rate (about $5, IIRC). Others were doing a buy it now, either with free shipping or a separate shipping charge. Ebay switched to charging final value fees on the total purchase price including shipping, about a year ago. Sellers had a fit, but ebay was finding too many people who were selling something worth $10 for $.99 then charging $9 shipping in order to avoid paying fees. Now you pay the same rate on shipping as the item, so it doesn't matter whether you fold shipping into your price and call it "free shipping" or whether you charge separately. And as a buyer, I just look at the total cost to see if it's in line with what other sellers are charging. Even for my weird obscure shorts brand, there were probably 20 listings total at any given time and 2-3 in my size, and if I waited a day or two, there would be more choices, so I was able to wait til I found the item at a price I thought was fair. I did like buy it now because I could get the item right then, but I didn't mind the auction either -- I would put a snipe bid in at a 3rd party site like auctionstealer and then forget about it til the auction ended. Often I ended up paying less for the auction ones -- I just had to wait a few days longer. If I found a pair I liked but the price was too high, I emailed the sellers and asked if they would take less (they have the option of putting a Best Offer option on their items and if they did, I would make an offer, if not, I would email them using the contact form). I would show them my auction history and what they typical price was I would pay including shipping and often, they would lower the price to be competitive. If not, I just moved on to a different item -- the beauty of ebay is that something just like the thing you just missed out on will come around again soon. That's not much encouragement for you as a seller though, LOL! I used to sell on ebay and don't anymore because, like you, I've noticed that the prices have gone down and fees/shipping have gone up so much that it isn't worth it to me anymore. But I know a lot of folks who are still making a good living at it, so the numbers must obviously still work out for people! Good luck with your sales!

nosoccermom, that's kind of a tough one. If the item is unique and you can't buy it elsewhere, you could try contacting the seller and asking for a Buy It Now price. (You're sure it's not that they are just relisting an identical item, right?) Hard to know how they will react but I don't see what it could hurt. I would write the request carefully so they can't really tell if you're accusing them of shill bidding or not; if they think you are going to report them, they'll probably just block you immediately and move on. How is the rest of their feedback? Sometimes you can look at the detailed feedback other buyers have left to figure out if the seller is above board, or not well behaved. If they react negatively (or if you find bad things in their feedback) and you decide it's a lost cause, then I'd probably contact eBay and report the practice. As far as I know eBay still does not look kindly on this practice at all. However, I don't think there is really a way to force the seller to act like he should (to make sure you can buy the item.)

In your settings you can choose to have your buying history private. If you do & you win an auction it will come up User ID kept private. Otherwise it will come up w/ the asterisk's. Ebay started using the asterisk's to protect members from scam 2nd chance offers, other against the rules contact & general privacy.