Has anyone else out there had any experience buying negatives from a tonkandrwood o ebay? Just asking..........

Yes, I bought an in-service neg of our #103 (Sumter & Choctaw 2-6-2). It is a copy neg, near as I can tell (I have a bit of photo experience). A good one, but not an original. Worth the $6-8 certainly. I'd say not bad if it's an image you really want/need. I hadn't seen any old days shots of 103 around. He ships in bullet-proof packing, too.

Howard P.
Tri-X, NY

I too have purchased from that seller, with no problems to report whatsoever.

Keith

I bought from him too. I got a negative of PRR 643 inroute to Williams Grove back in the 1960's. from the Harrisburg Steel Co.

I sent him a money Order and recived it with in the same week.

Len.
Ebay name CR6370

I was just curious. I know all of the negs are copies, but am wondering how he does it.
I bought a couple Frisco negs and scanned them at 4800 dpi, since they are small. The image on the neg was pixilated (?) just as a low res scan would be. Do they scan prints and somehow make photo negs from them? All the negs I've seen are the same size, sort of like the old 828 Bantam size.
He has a couple listed now that I have the original PC negs to, so that makes me even more curious.
He did allow me to return the two that were so bad.

The one I bought is an original because he stated it was in an email he sent to me.

Len.

And, of course, nobody in history has ever lied or stretched the truth at all in e-mails, web sites, and/or eBay............. [rolls eyes]

Only you maybe Mr. Mitchell, lol.

Len.

Exposing film by means of a computer is possible. I had to do that stuff for a college graphic design class back in 2002.

I've seen several of my father's Northern Pacific photos copied and for sale on his eBay ads. It doesn't make me happy to see this. They are obviously copied from old and rather poor prints. Seems somewhat like someone is making a business out of copying any rr photo they can get ahold of and selling the negs.

Steve

I bought 3 from him and they were utter garbage, very low resolution scans that even with an eye loupe you could see huge pixels. Also looked like they might have been scanned out of a book.

Also I have heard from another person that he was stealing images off of his website and producing negatives. I would stay away.

Richard

Probably not the negative's fault, it's your scanner. "4800 dpi" is almost certainly a false claim by the scanner maker to sound impressive. http://computer.howstuffworks.com/question689.htm

Try scanning a "known good" negative right next to the suspect one... you'll see for sure.

By the way, this guy continues to have 99.8% positive feedback. That is a bit of a mystery given all the complaints I see here.

As to copyright violations,the copyright holder files a DMCA takedown notice on eBay, who removes the listing promptly. eBay is very intolerant of this, and will permanently ban a seller after 2-3 takedowns, even if the takedowns originate from the same copyright holder. (heck, even if the takedowns are bogus!)

It's the negative's fault. As a previous poster said, he looked at it through a magnifier and saw the pixels. I guarantee I can scan the same size good neg and one of these and Ray Charles could see the difference. I do it almost daily.
I normally scan at about 1200dpi with an Epson V700, but these were so awful I decided to go real hi res. No improvement. Friend of mine has gotten the same results.