This whole thing is just sad. I'm not accusing anybody of anything but this is what I do know....
I am the one that spotted this bike on Ebay just a few seconds after it was posted by the seller. I could have easily bought this bike myself but I recalled that Kurt (a young collector) had been searching for a bike like this Hawthorne...for I had seen posts (comments) that Kurt had posted at varies times about wanting a bike like this. So I chose to contact him…very quickly because I knew this bike wouldn't last long at that price...through a message and gave him the item number….which he then went to Ebay, looked the bike up and immediately hit the buy it now button and BOUGHT it from the seller that had it listed for the price the seller wanted at that time (which I imagine was much more than what that seller paid for that bike from the original owner). Kurt then sent me a message back telling me he had just won the Hawthorne. I was happy for him and I was happy to be able to help out a fellow bike collector by passing a great bike on to them. He bought the bike with the BUY IT NOW and that should have been a done deal. Kurt didn't contact the seller to negotiate a price Higher or Lower...he bought the bike for the exact price it was listed for in the Ebay auction. Unfortunately, Kurt contacted me shortly after he bought it and told me he wasn't getting the bike. He said the original owner, or something like that, wanted the bike back. I couldn't believe it and "I" felt bad because I had been the one to turn him on to this bike. I was truly worried about his money and I was just hoping he would get the money back that he had ALREADY paid. Deep down I felt that something must have transpired over night between the seller and an outside source, but I was just assuming at that time. I cannot tell you how much it bothered me that I had found this bike and shared it with a fellow collector…then the deal turned sour. I apologized to Kurt for the deal not going through. I try not to look at bicycle collecting in a negative way because truly there should be no negatives about collecting…but when things like this happen…it's hard not to do so. It was a GREAT bike and it was a GREAT deal (at the seller's decided BUY IT NOW PRICE) and for a short amount of time….it belonged to Kurt…for he legitimately bought it, exchanged money and anxiously awaited its arrival. It's just too bad the arrival day, of this Hawthorne, never came for Kurt. Sorry Kurt that it ended like this. Now it's hard not to look at this bike and think…it's not so great anymore.....
At this point, it becomes he said she said... And none of us will ever truly know what transpired on the other ends of this deal outside of Ebay. But what I do know and this is very TRUE...the bike was listed publicly on Ebay for a buy it now price that the seller determined...and Kurt was able to hit the BUY IT NOW button in enough time to fairly buy it.... He then exchanged his money...and put his money into the seller's account. So the bike should have arrived at his door at some point but that never happened. But now this whole situation, unfortunately, has become part of this particular bikes history.
