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  1. #1
    Senior Member miyanc's Avatar
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    what to expect from pillows and such from Ebay?

    It may be a long time for me to be able to make my own down gear, but i was just curious about going to ebay and buying down.

    I am sure most are going to say its junk, but what are the terms suppose to mean?
    I don't think a pillow will read 800fp. They are not advertizing r-value, but what is the difference in white goose down, European goose down?
    If down is suppose to refer to the "down"feathers then if it says 100% down should it not have regular feathers?
    how does % compare to FP? If it says 85%down 15% feathers what does that equate too? and does the ratio hold up if its 50/50?

    I am aware that it would be best to just buy prepackaged down from one of our wonderful vendors I am asking because when the time comes I may go a different route, I also my spot a pillow or blanket second hand and may decide to use that. In a perfect world I would just buy finished products, but I have caught the DIY bug and looking to see if I can better some products ( at least for what I may want or need). Thanks in advance I know you all rock.

  2. #2
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    Several pillow listings do list the fill power and that is what you're looking for (and preferably 100% down).

    The fill power of 100% down can vary widely...700, 800, 900, etc depending on it's starting quality and thoroughness of sorting.

    When you start talking % of down to feathers, that's another subject and doesn't automatically equate to fill power although higher percentages of feathers will indicate a lower FP.

  3. #3
    Senior Member Boston's Avatar
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    All down will have some amount of feathers. The sorting process isn't capable enough to completely separate them all.

    That said, if someone is 100% down, it has no feather content be design (just the small amount that can't be sorted out). If there is some percentage of feathers, the mixture is purposely allowing feathers in with the down. While you can't have super high fill power with a lot of feathers (like 900FP), you can vary the fill power based on down quality and feather content. For instance, if you have large down clusters typically associated with high FP, mixed with feathers, you may still be able to produce 700FP, or even higher. Meaning feather content doesn't necessarily correlate to to FP.

    The assumption around here is high FP = low feathers. However, the reverse is not true. You can have low fill power with 0 feathers, as FP is primarily based on down cluster size.

  4. #4
    Senior Member bigfanboy's Avatar
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    MY feedback on eBay down buying is, be ready to pay WAY more than you think at first and be prepared to loose a lot of bids.

    I recently lost 5 bids in one day at the last second.

    I was bidding on My Luxe pillows (king medium or Firm), and My Luxe comforters queen and king, medium and heavy duty.

    The bidding starts very low, maybe $20, the bid time is days, maybe 5 or more. Very little bidding happens until the last hour or so, and then it can quickly go from $20 to $250 for a king size heavy duty comforter.

    I watched a King firm pillow, used auto bidding to set what I thought would get the winning bid, honestly thought I would be 30% higher than the highest bid. The clock went from 1s as me the winner, with room to spare on auto increment the bid to me loosing, literally with a single browser refresh 1s left I was the winner, that second clicked away and I had lost, somehow the winner had bid EXACTLY 1 dollar above my top bid set. This convinced me the fix is in. Someone is selling theoretically $600-$1000 comforters for less then $300, someone is using technology to make sure they win all the bids. If you look at the bids across all this stuff they are the same bidders, and their names are crap names like a36bht34. And I don't mean the short names eBay gives you on bid history.

    After that I lost my appetite for it. I am now using Craigslist, Goodwill, and Salvation Army stores. And I am doing well. Am I getting 900FP down, no. But I am getting down and feathers that should work well for a set of DIY projects, including a winter UQ. Will that UQ weigh 5oz, no. But when I get to that point I will set that money aside, (a.k.a hide it from the CFO) and buy from one of the killer vendors we have in this industry.

    I now have 22 oz of good down, mediocre down, down with feathers, and some pretty sad looking feathers with down. I am making a HUGE mess of my office every time I work on getting the down from these jackets, but I am having fun and have some great ideas. I even found a jacket that had some great down, and was large enough for me to use the sleeves much like the set Shug makes love to on occasion in his videos.

    Shug it's true, you shove them in your pants!

    Anyway my 11.5 cents

  5. #5
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    I'd be real wary of bedbugs in any 'used' (or even 'dubious') bedding products. Make sure the package is completely treated (freezer?? heat??) before you open it in your house.
    At some point, saving a few dollars doesn't seem quite as important.......

    That's the reason for those 'mattress tags'- ..."DO NOT REMOVE UNDER PENALTY OF LAW- CONTAINS NEW MATERIALS ONLY" that we all used to joke about......

    And. there have been plenty of stories in the news about stores <insert well-known brand name here> infested with bedbugs, so even good quality products can bring home a 'little surprise' with them.....

  6. #6
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    Quote Originally Posted by bigfanboy View Post
    This convinced me the fix is in. Someone is selling theoretically $600-$1000 comforters for less then $300, someone is using technology to make sure they win all the bids.
    I haven't placed an eBay bid 'in real time' in years. I think a lot of eBayers who bid on auctions (most of my purchases nowadays are cheap 'BuyItNow' items) are using an automated bidding service. The service will place your bid a few seconds (you specify) before the auction end, with a max bid you specify. Of course, the standard eBay bid increment applies (varies with the bid amount- expensive items can be $1 or $10 bid increments), so your winning bid will be just above the next highest bid.

    Some of the bidding services are free - like eBay bidding scheduler.
    http://www.biddingscheduler.com/
    It seems to work OK for me and I haven't had a problem in 10 years or so, beyond missing a few items because a tech glitch delayed my bid for a few seconds, but DO check out any service you use, because you need to provide the bidding scheduler with your eBay username and password.
    BTW, you can revise/cancel scheduled bids if you change your mind.

    That said, there are scam operations on eBay with shill bidders, as Bigfanboy mentions. Looking at the bid histories of sold items (use advanced search) can help weed out the bad sellers. And, know the real value of what you are bidding on - you may be able to get the same thing locally - without paying shipping charges.

  7. #7
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    I had almost the same experience as bigfanboy on eBay, where the bidding would go very high in the last hour. I found a "Buy it Now or Best Offer" auction for a My Luxe King size Medium/Firm pillow and made an offer which was accepted. With shipping it came out to $82 for a 32oz down pillow. I've read posts here where people have scored the same thing for less but from what I've seen all the King size pillows end up selling for at least $120 for one pillow. Maybe if you buy 2 pillows in one auction it will end up cheaper, but I have no need for so much down so the only purpose would be to resell it.

  8. #8
    Senior Member Mouseskowitz's Avatar
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    This past spring I seemed up picking up 140 oz of my luxe stuff for under $2.50 shipped, so it can be done. So far have made two uqs. I saw almost no feathers and calculated the fill to be 700+ fresh out of the pillow, probably would have been higher if I let it loft out. I need to add draft collars before I can find the true low end temp, but I have used the two together to -4, the calculator puts the individual temps at 13.

  9. #9
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    Out of curiosity how much support does one get from a high fill power pillow? I would think the higher the fill power the less the support. OTOH quilts is quilts...
    YMMV

    HYOH

    Free advice worth what you paid for it. ;-)

  10. #10
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    The medium/firm pillow is pretty sturdy, a little too much if you ask me. I would prefer the the medium/soft which seems like it has the right amount of loft for a loft. Not that I use them for sleeping, I'm not that fancy .

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