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What's with "please email for pictures"?

Murindo said:
Direct upload is easy once you understand that pics must be no larger than 1200 pixels. I take the pic on my cell phone, email it to myself, download on my computer, open with Paint, crop, rotate if necessary, then select resize, select pixels, resize to 1200 on the longest side, save and you're done.

Sounds long and complicated but really takes less than 5 minutes overall.
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I too email the pictures to myself on my phone. Although I don’t need to go through the process of further editing. I send them to myself as a medium attachment, Open the email and save to photo roll. That’s all I need to do and they’re ready to post up. That works on an iPhone anyway. Your mileage may vary with other brands.
 
Can't speak for others but I post from a dumb-phone and I cannot use image hosting sites or BF's built in upload tool without using a friends computer. However I can email photos no problem. If the knife I'm selling is a plain jane production knife in new condition I will ask to be emailed for photos so I don't have to use my buddy's computer.
 
I'll admit it: laziness. I don't have a smartphone or the account that goes with it; I just cannot afford it. Since my cancer means I have left the house exactly 6 times in the last year, all with my wife since I don't have a car and can't drive, and all to the hospital, I can't justify buying a smartphone and dropping $100/month on the account, which in talking with people around here is the average figure they spend.

That leaves me with setting up the modeling lights, breaking out the 35mm and a lens, taking test shots to get everything focused and framed, then taking the shots and uploading them to the computer. Since I'm stupid, I probably still have the camera set to take the photos as full size RAW images from the last time I used it. Now the photos get imported into Lightroom, settings applied, reviewed, sized, and jpgs are made.

Suddenly I have an hour or two invested in taking that simple picture.

Oh, that's assuming that my body holds out, and I don't have to make about 37 trips to the bathroom in that duration; that all the batteries (camera, remote, etc) are charged; that I have all the cables, etc., needed; that nothing else goes wrong.

Then comes the Internet itself. There is one ISP in the sticks here; they increased my upload speed to a whopping 768 kbs (hey, I only spend $150/month on their service), so assuming that the Internet is up, and that my wife is not streaming something - usually a picture of an hourglass - I can start to upload those pics. That's the real fun; there's nothing like the feeling that comes with the error message "Upload 99% complete...now aborting" on the screen about 10 times to make your day just short of perfect.

So, laziness will win.
 
If that is stated or a link to the original post
I move right on down the road..Ill spend my $$ elsewhere
If a seller/trade cant take time to post picture(s)
I guess they wont have time working a deal.
 
I see that for some, there are legitimate reasons for not including images, but instead offer to email them to interested potential buyers. But...When the seller doesn’t at least provide a full and complete description of the knife’s condition, then it seems like laziness, at best, or what are they hiding, at worst. It comes across as a red flag that tells me I’m better off skipping the seller.
 
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cigarrodog said:
I see that for some, there are legitimate reasons for not including images, but instead offer to email them to interested potential buyers. But...When the seller doesn’t at least provide a full and complete description of the knife’s condition, then it seems like laziness, at best, or what are they hiding, at worst. It comes across as a red flag that tells me I’m better off skipping the seller.
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This bugs me even when there are pictures. I think it's just common sense to use your For Sale post to answer easily anticipated questions like "Did you buy this from a dealer, or was it purchased secondhand?" or "Did you actually use the knife?"
 
madcap_magician said:
This bugs me even when there are pictures. I think it's just common sense to use your For Sale post to answer easily anticipated questions like "Did you buy this from a dealer, or was it purchased secondhand?" or "Did you actually use the knife?"
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This one mystifies me as well.

Even if the condition is "new in box," one of the benefits of buying a knife from a fellow knife nut is that the seller can tell me things I want to know about it -- detent, lockup, blade play, etc. Unlike buying it from a store, I can't return it if I'm not happy with it; I'm not going to buy a knife "blind" with no return option.
 
I don't really get this neither. To me it comes across as if someone's trying to hide something and I simply move on.

It's so convenient to have a photo-hosting account, especially if you post on multiple forums. And like you said it is free, so what's the problem? If you want to use the internet to sell your stuff you should take 5 minutes to figure out the photo-thing imo.

And yeah, don't get me started on those paypal fees (it's a freaking sellers-fee for crying out loud, I'm not paying for your privilege to sell stuff using paypal!), or even worse, demanding payment as f&f...
 
How true.
If they cannot take the 5 minutes to get some good photos in a sales thread, it shows laziness. A seller stating he doesn’t computer, doesn’t really fly any longer.
I have purchased close to 50 knives off the Exchange and every ad had well taken pics. Never even considered ads w/o pics.
Also......NO F&F, ever.
Joe

GooberBoober said:
I don't really get this neither. To me it comes across as if someone's trying to hide something and I simply move on.

It's so convenient to have a photo-hosting account, especially if you post on multiple forums. And like you said it is free, so what's the problem? If you want to use the internet to sell your stuff you should take 5 minutes to figure out the photo-thing imo.

And yeah, don't get me started on those paypal fees (it's a freaking sellers-fee for crying out loud, I'm not paying for your privilege to sell stuff using paypal!), or even worse, demanding payment as f&f...
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silverds said:
Not out of any moral code but just out of habit, I tend to skip right by sales without pics. I have made impulse purchases based on liking the looks of a knife for sale, so posting pics would presumably, greatly increase your chances of attracting buyers.
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Best answer so far. Many or most of my toy purchases are spontaneous, and if I have time to think about it I often come to my senses and don't buy it.
 
Often with my smartphone, just photographing on a neutral background helps me, but all I’m doing is posting in threads. I love the ability to directly upload from my phone, it takes reasonably good pics, and it’s handy without secondary sites. $.02
Thanks, Neal
 
I've personally don't care of there's a picture or not if it's listed as BNIB, there shouldn't be any defects to show. Unless you suspect they're lying, In which case why buy from them at all.
 
Baller said:
I've personally don't care of there's a picture or not if it's listed as BNIB, there shouldn't be any defects to show. Unless you suspect they're lying, In which case why buy from them at all.
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Read the threads here in the GBU regarding the whole “BNIB”, “LNIB”, “Mint”, debacles and you’ll probably stop taking the seller’s words for it. There’s been plenty of times where people have sold clearly used knives but listed them as being “new in box”.

For me, I want to see good pictures to help me make my decision. The problem with asking for pics is when I do, a lot of times I’ll get one or two sent. Then I have to ask for more showing the spines and the blade centering (if it’s a folder). This usually leads to asking for more information due to an incomplete sales ad. It’s more often not worth the effort.
 
Often the photo's don't show anything, if the knife is in excellent condition(BNIB, LNIB), but I have had the feeling, with some buyers at least, that they wanted the photo just to be sure you even had the knife. I sometimes get odd request for photo's I feel are just to see if I can post it. Maybe they were that concerned about the box that verbal wouldn't do it, but I sensed a test.
 
I will say while I have never posted a for sale here on BF I have sold via many other systems and not included pictures at first. The reason is usually a combination of things at the core is usually a bit of laziness/procrastination. I almost never post anything from my phone and the pictures are either not yet taken or still on the phone only. I will also have a habit of posting my initial listing while I am at work and I will not load pictures to my work computer. I will add I tend to state that pictures available upon request and to be posted later. This is where procrastination really sets in as once I post I tend to take a few days to get around to uploading pictures despite using my home PC daily and syncing my phone daily.
 
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