and, sadly, while the ring isn’t original (lots of rings aren’t original) it’s very possibly not resold; that’s fairly standard fancy gallery wire it’s made of.
Coincidence? I can’t honestly say. Maybe they’re copies. But that seems like a lot of extra work when you could just buy wholesale. Especially with that kind of sales volume (I’m counting 231 in the last 12 days). I don’t know, maybe it’s possible for one person with another Etsy shop in addition, but I sure couldn’t keep up with that.
…seeing these other links, I am kind of leaning toward reselling more now. OR, if not reselling, copying or buying them and ‘changing’ them a bit.
Like rushgirl said I cannot be certain, and they MAY be able to make and sell as many as they have in so short a time, but the ‘copycats’ on Alibaba are a bit of a coincedence if so.
TLDR; not sure if reseller or actually just tricky. (accompanied by Fry face)
Re: the pendants, it is “Etsy legal” to use a mass produced pendant to make a necklace, even if that necklace is just the pendant on a chain. I wouldn’t call it re-selling. Now, if she were to claim that she made the actual pendant… But she doesn’t claim that.
I too have seen that gallery wire for sale… she might have soldered it herself, but the thing is, it is such a simple design that there’s no reason you wouldn’t see the same thing all over the place.
Judging on the curve of Etsy crimes and misdemeanors, this seller barely registers. Check out these listings, from ostensibly separate shops — both using the same manufacturer’s product id numbers. Clearly one Shanghai factory operating (at least) two storefronts to dump mass produced junk on Etsy.
Yeah, I was wondering how they make them by hand – hemming maybe? Tag line for their shop screams re-sale: “Warm Sunshine, Quiet Time, Be The Best of your Heart”
The Etsy link to the princess ring isn’t coming up, so either it’s being taken down or people have crashed the site trying to get a closer look at the ring and the fabulous wood background.
If nothing else, at least this post has provided my eye-wateringly flatulent little cat with a new nickname. Bonus: Somewhere there’s a picture of him wearing a scarf, so it’s perfect.
I used to have this adorable Chocolate point Siamese female. She was so small and cute she looked like a stuffed toy. She used to sit in front of our electric fire and fart and fart. You never heard it but the air would turn green and you would look at her smiling away (she always seemed super pleased) and you knew where it came from.
We didn’t have a dog. I used to think in her little princess cat mind she thought she was giving us a present. She looked so damned pleased with herself.
Less painful but etymologically similar farts include:
DARfarts – Bluehair air in the bloomers; usually caused by cucumber sandwiches
Garfarts – What Paul Simon had to put up with
Jarfarts – The makings of a great practical joke
Marfarts – When things go horribly wrong
Parfarts – How to distract a golfer on the green
Tarfarts – Normally associated with hangovers
Warfarts – The opening salvos in a roommate dispute
Funny you should say that about the jarfarts – we had one of them in the office back in my cadet engineer days. True story. Jar, regularly refilled by cadets…
actually that ring is handmade. Thats just fancy gallery bezel wire. I buy the wire for setting stones all the time. plus you can see the solder joint.
Mildly Angry Etsy Seller
November 12, 2012 at 9:20 pm
The alibaba listing also describes the ring has handmade, the solder joint could be there intentionally. Or they pay 500 chinese ladies 10 cents an hour to spend all day soldering rings.
I’m just beginning to work with metals and even I can produce a ring pretty fast. And you can buy that exact gallery wire anywhere. Plus Chinese resellers usually don’t bother taking their own photos, so I’m willing to give the seller the benefit of the doubt. This time.
Mildly Angry Etsy Seller
November 13, 2012 at 10:18 am
Anyone willing to check her other rings for possible resells? Another suspiciously identical but possibly handmade ring would clinch her as a reseller in my mind. Not that there’s much I can do about it.
Seriously … making a ring like that would take all of 5 minutes, tops. And that includes 2 minutes in the pickle.
It’s really not such fucking rocket science that it needs the amount of skepticism you’re expending here.
Now, if you really want to push it, you *could* scream that she’s not original ~ you can find every single one of her rings in any “soldering jewelery for beginner’s” book out there.
Considering how much cheaper and how much easier (5 minutes TOPS) it is to just make them herself, that’s pretty silly.
Or do you really believe that she has 600 (or whatever the bulk number they sell is) of EVERY single size sitting in her dining room?!
I get that there’s enough resellers in the world that her listing merits “inspection,” but for fuck’s sake ~ when at least 4 jewelery-makers say that it’s a simple fucking process to make a ring from pre-made wire … you’re not only beating a dead horse at this point, you’re kinda fucking it in the ear.
Me thinks you are getting a bit too bent out of shape. I checked etsy and rio grande for the wire and other rings. I’ve seen the wire for crown ring 02 at rio grande and sold as a ring by DeafCatStudios here http://tinyurl.com/b5ytly9
Does that make either seller original or hand crafters? No. Does it prove they are resellers? No. But it does tell me that the rings are extremely marked up if it only takes 5 minutes and about an inch of wire.
Nothing like letting people know they’re getting jacked by the price. That’s what, at least a 300% mark up if you figure their hourly wage at $100/hr? Hell, if I want to pay those prices I’ll go to a mall jewelry store where at least the sales person will try and schmooze me.
*sigh* I don’t see my reaction as getting bent out of shape. I see it more as getting frustrated.
As I see it, “Questioner” asked a question. People with experience (metal-smiths and jewelers) answered that question. “Questioner” continues to speculate. Ad nauseum.
As for your point about 5 minutes work equating to $24, you’ve got a valid point. Well, less than that when you consider materials (the silver wire, the hammers used to form it, the soldering equipment, the work space, the listing fees, etc). After expenses, she’s probably made about $10 for that ring.
However, like anything else, it goes to skill and expertise. If you don’t have a particular skill, you pay someone to do it for you. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have just paid an outrageously painful sum of money for roof repair. :/
I was very fortunate to be on high ground. I never lost power, never flooded. Thank you for asking! I’ve been helping in the Red Hook neighborhood, as I know people there and they took a hard hit.
That’s handmade, guys. That’s just fancy gallery wire, wrapped around a mandrel and soldered. So easy-peasy it’d be outrageously stupid for someone to buy it just to resell it.
Plus, silver’s so cheap right now, the seller would may MUCH more money just making it her/himself. A size 7 silver ring can be made for like $2. Fancy wire like would just cost the jeweller $8, tops.
To be fair, you can buy pre-made wire (called gallery wire) from a lots of vendors to make into settings or rings: http://tinyurl.com/au7wha3
Does it meet the definition of handmade? As a metalsmith myself, I would say that it squeaks in-barely. Many of us use pre-made wire-round wire, square wire, triangle wire to produce our own jump rings, is this handmade? I would say yes. In this case, she isn’t carving a wax model herself to make this pattern, nor is she filing and carving the pattern into the metal herself, but as someone else pointed out, you can see the solder seam, so she did, in fact, measure the wire (I hope) and cut the wire herself and then she soldered it together. Is it original? Meh. Is it pretty? For the right person, yes. Is it handmade? Yes, with reservations.
I agree. But wouldn’t you hold her efforts in higher esteem than a reseller who has Chinese women working in sweatshop conditions, making .10/hour (as someone else suggested)?
My point is that if someone wants to bitch, bitch about the quality or design of her work. But do give her the credit of it *being* her work.
At work we get a protein supplement from our supplier to give to some of our residents. It’s supposed to be called Pro Pass (for the medicine pass), but it’s run together, Propass. So you know how I’ve been pronouncing it.
Sometimes alibaba copies etsy sellers. Actually that is bezel wire that is sold on thunderbirdsupply.com which is a really popular supplier. All she has to do is cut to length and put a tiny bit of solder. So it really isn’t all that unlikely that she is handmaking them.
November 12, 2012 at 4:21 pm
farts will make my scars complete.
November 12, 2012 at 6:16 pm
Actually, I was thinking that farts would make make my scarfs complete. But then I hate scarfs.
November 12, 2012 at 4:21 pm
My wasband’s farts could scar a person. Ask me how I know.
November 12, 2012 at 4:24 pm
I’m more interested in what a wasband is
November 12, 2012 at 4:26 pm
Was a husband, perhaps?
November 12, 2012 at 4:29 pm
like an exband?
November 12, 2012 at 4:32 pm
Or a waife.
November 12, 2012 at 4:38 pm
Or a dispouse
November 12, 2012 at 6:10 pm
Significan’t Other?
November 12, 2012 at 6:17 pm
Fuck, I now have to buy yet another keyboard.
November 12, 2012 at 7:37 pm
They really should make a Regretsy-friendly waterproof one.
November 13, 2012 at 2:47 am
Soulmain’t?
November 13, 2012 at 2:17 pm
Apartner?
[I finally registered myself on Regretsy just to post that, I'll have you know.]
November 12, 2012 at 4:22 pm
If a fart leaves a scar, you need to visit your proctologist STAT!
November 17, 2012 at 6:38 pm
Ask me about my ANAL FISSURE.
November 12, 2012 at 4:24 pm
The Scarfarts are like the Rockefellers of China.
November 12, 2012 at 4:24 pm
and, sadly, while the ring isn’t original (lots of rings aren’t original) it’s very possibly not resold; that’s fairly standard fancy gallery wire it’s made of.
November 12, 2012 at 4:31 pm
and I can see the solder join. I think she made it.
November 12, 2012 at 5:09 pm
It isn’t the only one.
24K gold-plated pinecone necklace: http://www.etsy.com/listing/84744532/24k-gold-dipped-pinecone-necklace
Same on Alibaba: http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/350477656/Yiwu_man_yun_natural_gold_leave.html
Silver puzzle pendant: http://www.etsy.com/listing/67231178/puzzle-sterling-silver-necklace
Same on Alibaba: http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/547563379/hot_sale_puzzle_piece_charm_to.html
Infinity knot ring: http://www.etsy.com/listing/108697228/infinity-knot-ring-recycled-sterling
Same on Alibaba: http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/619405304/Infinity_ring_sterling_silver_knot_ring.html
Coincidence? I can’t honestly say. Maybe they’re copies. But that seems like a lot of extra work when you could just buy wholesale. Especially with that kind of sales volume (I’m counting 231 in the last 12 days). I don’t know, maybe it’s possible for one person with another Etsy shop in addition, but I sure couldn’t keep up with that.
November 12, 2012 at 10:46 pm
…seeing these other links, I am kind of leaning toward reselling more now. OR, if not reselling, copying or buying them and ‘changing’ them a bit.
Like rushgirl said I cannot be certain, and they MAY be able to make and sell as many as they have in so short a time, but the ‘copycats’ on Alibaba are a bit of a coincedence if so.
TLDR; not sure if reseller or actually just tricky. (accompanied by Fry face)
November 13, 2012 at 8:49 am
She made the ones in the pictures and is reselling all the ones that get ordered? The Ol’ Bait & Switch.
November 13, 2012 at 9:30 am
Re: the pendants, it is “Etsy legal” to use a mass produced pendant to make a necklace, even if that necklace is just the pendant on a chain. I wouldn’t call it re-selling. Now, if she were to claim that she made the actual pendant… But she doesn’t claim that.
I too have seen that gallery wire for sale… she might have soldered it herself, but the thing is, it is such a simple design that there’s no reason you wouldn’t see the same thing all over the place.
Judging on the curve of Etsy crimes and misdemeanors, this seller barely registers. Check out these listings, from ostensibly separate shops — both using the same manufacturer’s product id numbers. Clearly one Shanghai factory operating (at least) two storefronts to dump mass produced junk on Etsy.
http://www.etsy.com/listing/104745881/bubble-bib-necklace-red-bubble-necklace
http://www.etsy.com/listing/110137287/red-bubble-necklace-bubble-bib-necklace
November 13, 2012 at 8:58 am
That’s what I was thinking. I’ve been eyeballing some identical gallery wire for my next order: http://www.riogrande.com/Product/Sterling-Silver-Gallery-Wire/103270?pos=29
November 12, 2012 at 4:24 pm
You can get scarfarts lots of places apparently
http://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/Free-shipping-Printed-Chiffon-100-SILK-Scarf-Leopard-Long-Scarves/903391_606282561.html
November 12, 2012 at 7:29 pm
Yeah, I’m thinking that the ring is a lot more hand made than the scarves. At the least, the ring-seller seems to have done her own photography.
November 13, 2012 at 6:04 am
Yeah, I was wondering how they make them by hand – hemming maybe? Tag line for their shop screams re-sale: “Warm Sunshine, Quiet Time, Be The Best of your Heart”
November 12, 2012 at 4:25 pm
The Etsy link to the princess ring isn’t coming up, so either it’s being taken down or people have crashed the site trying to get a closer look at the ring and the fabulous wood background.
November 12, 2012 at 7:29 pm
The Etsy link works now. But I can’t seem to find that FB post.
It’s nice to see Etsy has their priorities in check.
November 12, 2012 at 9:03 pm
It’s not a facebook, it’s pinterest. http://pinterest.com/pin/155303887121034328/
November 12, 2012 at 9:40 pm
It was nice of them to delete the comment and leave the pin up for people to admire.
November 15, 2012 at 6:47 pm
I think it went down because the seller has added (as seen on Regretsy, haha!) to the product title. Check it out!
November 12, 2012 at 4:26 pm
Im guessing a scarfart is the name given to a fart so volatile , it leaves scorch marks on nearly surfaces and seats
November 12, 2012 at 5:35 pm
I thought it was that Al Pacino movie.
November 12, 2012 at 6:19 pm
That’s what HE said.
November 12, 2012 at 4:27 pm
If nothing else, at least this post has provided my eye-wateringly flatulent little cat with a new nickname. Bonus: Somewhere there’s a picture of him wearing a scarf, so it’s perfect.
November 13, 2012 at 7:15 am
I used to have this adorable Chocolate point Siamese female. She was so small and cute she looked like a stuffed toy. She used to sit in front of our electric fire and fart and fart. You never heard it but the air would turn green and you would look at her smiling away (she always seemed super pleased) and you knew where it came from.
November 13, 2012 at 10:08 am
She was blaming the dog in her little feline mind.
November 13, 2012 at 11:35 am
We didn’t have a dog. I used to think in her little princess cat mind she thought she was giving us a present. She looked so damned pleased with herself.
November 12, 2012 at 4:27 pm
I’m wondering – if your scar farts, does that mean you have just had hemorrhoid surgery?
November 12, 2012 at 4:29 pm
You know, I really could use some quite time.
November 12, 2012 at 4:38 pm
I like to spend my quite time being succinct.
November 12, 2012 at 4:37 pm
Less painful but etymologically similar farts include:
DARfarts – Bluehair air in the bloomers; usually caused by cucumber sandwiches
Garfarts – What Paul Simon had to put up with
Jarfarts – The makings of a great practical joke
Marfarts – When things go horribly wrong
Parfarts – How to distract a golfer on the green
Tarfarts – Normally associated with hangovers
Warfarts – The opening salvos in a roommate dispute
November 12, 2012 at 4:39 pm
There’s so many I can’t tell them afart.
November 12, 2012 at 5:01 pm
That’s a very asstoot of you.
November 12, 2012 at 5:13 pm
It certainly blew ME away!
November 13, 2012 at 8:53 am
It got a little long-winded but I still liked it.
November 12, 2012 at 5:05 pm
Losing love is like a window in your farts
Everybody sees you’re blown apart
Everybody sees you pass wind
-from one of Paul Simon’s later Garfarts
November 12, 2012 at 5:45 pm
Funny you should say that about the jarfarts – we had one of them in the office back in my cadet engineer days. True story. Jar, regularly refilled by cadets…
November 12, 2012 at 7:40 pm
don’t forget the dreaded Sharts.
November 12, 2012 at 4:43 pm
Now I see the reason for Scar’s treachery: he was jealous of the non-farting Mufasa.
November 12, 2012 at 4:55 pm
I’m tempted to start knitting just so I can start a store called Scarf Ace and have Tony Montana as my mascot.
November 12, 2012 at 6:27 pm
Say hello to my stinky friend
November 12, 2012 at 5:05 pm
Literally. That word, I do not think it means what you think it means.
November 12, 2012 at 5:18 pm
There’s a listing for a Pink Rubber scarfart, but I was too askeered to click.
November 12, 2012 at 5:42 pm
Al Capone’s flatulence was legendary among his lieutenants. But nobody DARED mention the nickname they had for him in his presence.
November 12, 2012 at 6:06 pm
actually that ring is handmade. Thats just fancy gallery bezel wire. I buy the wire for setting stones all the time. plus you can see the solder joint.
November 12, 2012 at 6:58 pm
So having a solder joint automatically makes it handmade?
Skeptical.
November 12, 2012 at 9:20 pm
The alibaba listing also describes the ring has handmade, the solder joint could be there intentionally. Or they pay 500 chinese ladies 10 cents an hour to spend all day soldering rings.
November 13, 2012 at 9:02 am
I’m just beginning to work with metals and even I can produce a ring pretty fast. And you can buy that exact gallery wire anywhere. Plus Chinese resellers usually don’t bother taking their own photos, so I’m willing to give the seller the benefit of the doubt. This time.
November 13, 2012 at 10:18 am
Anyone willing to check her other rings for possible resells? Another suspiciously identical but possibly handmade ring would clinch her as a reseller in my mind. Not that there’s much I can do about it.
November 13, 2012 at 2:49 pm
Seriously … making a ring like that would take all of 5 minutes, tops. And that includes 2 minutes in the pickle.
It’s really not such fucking rocket science that it needs the amount of skepticism you’re expending here.
Now, if you really want to push it, you *could* scream that she’s not original ~ you can find every single one of her rings in any “soldering jewelery for beginner’s” book out there.
Just sayin’.
November 13, 2012 at 2:53 pm
Considering how much cheaper and how much easier (5 minutes TOPS) it is to just make them herself, that’s pretty silly.
Or do you really believe that she has 600 (or whatever the bulk number they sell is) of EVERY single size sitting in her dining room?!
I get that there’s enough resellers in the world that her listing merits “inspection,” but for fuck’s sake ~ when at least 4 jewelery-makers say that it’s a simple fucking process to make a ring from pre-made wire … you’re not only beating a dead horse at this point, you’re kinda fucking it in the ear.
November 14, 2012 at 3:39 pm
Me thinks you are getting a bit too bent out of shape. I checked etsy and rio grande for the wire and other rings. I’ve seen the wire for crown ring 02 at rio grande and sold as a ring by DeafCatStudios here http://tinyurl.com/b5ytly9
Does that make either seller original or hand crafters? No. Does it prove they are resellers? No. But it does tell me that the rings are extremely marked up if it only takes 5 minutes and about an inch of wire.
Nothing like letting people know they’re getting jacked by the price. That’s what, at least a 300% mark up if you figure their hourly wage at $100/hr? Hell, if I want to pay those prices I’ll go to a mall jewelry store where at least the sales person will try and schmooze me.
November 14, 2012 at 8:21 pm
*sigh* I don’t see my reaction as getting bent out of shape. I see it more as getting frustrated.
As I see it, “Questioner” asked a question. People with experience (metal-smiths and jewelers) answered that question. “Questioner” continues to speculate. Ad nauseum.
As for your point about 5 minutes work equating to $24, you’ve got a valid point. Well, less than that when you consider materials (the silver wire, the hammers used to form it, the soldering equipment, the work space, the listing fees, etc). After expenses, she’s probably made about $10 for that ring.
However, like anything else, it goes to skill and expertise. If you don’t have a particular skill, you pay someone to do it for you. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have just paid an outrageously painful sum of money for roof repair. :/
November 12, 2012 at 6:08 pm
November 12, 2012 at 7:10 pm
OT… hey LB, did you get your power back on, etc?
November 12, 2012 at 7:31 pm
I was very fortunate to be on high ground. I never lost power, never flooded. Thank you for asking! I’ve been helping in the Red Hook neighborhood, as I know people there and they took a hard hit.
November 12, 2012 at 8:18 pm
That is excellent news.
November 12, 2012 at 11:42 pm
I don’t think that I am ever going to recover from that one. Im still laughing. I’m such a child.
November 12, 2012 at 6:48 pm
Kind of off subject….but wouldn’t SWEDISH MEATBRAWL be an awesome store name?
November 12, 2012 at 7:07 pm
Yosemite Spam.
November 12, 2012 at 6:58 pm
I would so capitalize the A in arts.
November 12, 2012 at 7:22 pm
I think they should capitalize the F, personally.
November 12, 2012 at 7:39 pm
Wow, you really walk the talk.
November 13, 2012 at 6:09 am
I heart the fart.
November 12, 2012 at 7:43 pm
Lesser-Known Hogwarts Instructors: Professor Weftodor, Defense Against The Scarfarts …
November 12, 2012 at 8:08 pm
That’s handmade, guys. That’s just fancy gallery wire, wrapped around a mandrel and soldered. So easy-peasy it’d be outrageously stupid for someone to buy it just to resell it.
Plus, silver’s so cheap right now, the seller would may MUCH more money just making it her/himself. A size 7 silver ring can be made for like $2. Fancy wire like would just cost the jeweller $8, tops.
I buy that wire all the time from Rio Grande.
November 13, 2012 at 12:51 am
Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
November 13, 2012 at 3:35 am
In Dots, Leopard, Skulls category – why does she throw that fake Chanel bag into the photos? Does she hand-craft those, too?
November 13, 2012 at 5:39 am
Thanks for farting on our dreams. I feel scarred now.
November 13, 2012 at 9:34 am
Now I understand why my Scottish friend got weird requests when she called her shop “theidealass.”
November 13, 2012 at 10:28 am
The ring seller has a sense of humour, mind you, so I would say probably made and soldered by hand. Usually the “resellers” get all buthurt about it. Check out the updated listing.
http://www.etsy.com/listing/111103820/crown-ring-01-sterling-silver-ring-as
November 13, 2012 at 11:11 am
If you count the crown points, there is a different number on sellers and alibaba’s.
November 13, 2012 at 11:15 am
Could this just mean that they photographed different sizes? I’m assuming a size 7 has to have more points than a size 4.
November 13, 2012 at 4:40 pm
To be fair, you can buy pre-made wire (called gallery wire) from a lots of vendors to make into settings or rings:
http://tinyurl.com/au7wha3
Does it meet the definition of handmade? As a metalsmith myself, I would say that it squeaks in-barely. Many of us use pre-made wire-round wire, square wire, triangle wire to produce our own jump rings, is this handmade? I would say yes. In this case, she isn’t carving a wax model herself to make this pattern, nor is she filing and carving the pattern into the metal herself, but as someone else pointed out, you can see the solder seam, so she did, in fact, measure the wire (I hope) and cut the wire herself and then she soldered it together. Is it original? Meh. Is it pretty? For the right person, yes. Is it handmade? Yes, with reservations.
The same supplier that sells the gallery wire also sells the pine cones: http://tinyurl.com/alsmbd4
November 14, 2012 at 8:27 pm
I agree. But wouldn’t you hold her efforts in higher esteem than a reseller who has Chinese women working in sweatshop conditions, making .10/hour (as someone else suggested)?
My point is that if someone wants to bitch, bitch about the quality or design of her work. But do give her the credit of it *being* her work.
November 14, 2012 at 1:19 pm
At work we get a protein supplement from our supplier to give to some of our residents. It’s supposed to be called Pro Pass (for the medicine pass), but it’s run together, Propass. So you know how I’ve been pronouncing it.
November 15, 2012 at 1:33 pm
I like this one too
http://www.etsy.com/shop/Grammieshats
you gotta think about it a little
November 17, 2012 at 1:44 am
Sometimes alibaba copies etsy sellers. Actually that is bezel wire that is sold on thunderbirdsupply.com which is a really popular supplier. All she has to do is cut to length and put a tiny bit of solder. So it really isn’t all that unlikely that she is handmaking them.
January 7, 2013 at 10:19 pm
I’d be more concerned by the fact that the rings on Alibaba are not really listed as sterling silver, but brass.