Why I Love Ebey, Part 9

OMG, the spelling. Having done time as a copyeditor, I take a word geek's twisted (and very sad) pleasure in the booboos that make their way into the titles and sales descriptions. Even with Google a few keystrokes away, even with scans showing the actual labels properly spelled, even with eBay's logarithms working full tilt to right the wrongs of the actual or occasional dyslexics manning the keyboards on the vendors' side of the showroom, you still get your Dries Von Notens, Calvin Kliens, Ferragammos, and more, items that typically go down for far below market value, because buyers who keyword correctly could not possibly find them.

Shoe legend "Roger Vivien" is understandable, for, on the insole of the shoe, the scripty "r" of the surname could easily be misread as an "n". A similar misread on the seller's part got me a gorgeous silk Krizia dress for very little money at all, because the vendor didn't recognize the brand and thought the decorative K was simply that, decoration. The dress was sold as Rizia, I was the only bidder that bothered to show up. (Tip: keyword "vintage," "silk," and "made in Italy" and you won't need the designers' names at all).

If you're the sort that likes fishing around for bargains, try casting around with some badly spelled names. But do be sure that they're spelled right on the label, because if it's wrong there, it's a whole other story.