I've never contacted the seller, but it seems to me that the canoe is being sold by someone either as a favor or for a percentage of the take, and either the owner won't accept less than a certain amount or the lister promised the owner he wouldn't go lower than that amount... and he just keeps trying. It may be a formal, legal arrangement and not just a favor for a friend. Originally, there were several canoes... now there's just this one, reappearing like an old friend ("ah yes... there it is... that Old Town again...").
What I tend to find frustrating are the canoes and paraphernalia that reappear with the same misleading stuff in the heading or body of the ad that I and many others pointed out to the seller the first time the item was listed... like the world's oldest Morris, built sixty years before Bert's birth. I see they've now amended the ad to say "circa 1900" rather than 1800 (!), but the title lures folks in with the promise of something that danced through a time warp and came out the other end.
My favorite recent misleading eBay ad was the probable-Trailcraft advertised as a 1904 Old Town. After receiving a probable-slew of emails, the seller informed buyers that her canoe might not be an Old Town after all. The first auction ended with a high bid over $500, which didn't meet the reserve price. Second time around, and the canoe wasn't listed as an Old Town... but it didn't go very high at all... so, the third time around the magical words "Old Town" were in the heading again... although the seller wasn't saying it was an Old Town.
The same seller listed some Old Town oars in a separate ad, saying they were from the turn of the 20th Century... and when I inquired about them, the seller said she'd gotten them with an Old Town canoe dating from 1904. The sad part is that the person buying those oars may actually believe that. (They were nice oars, maybe 30 years old).
Kathy
