Attaining The Wrong Test

Here's one that has an entertaining story behind it for a change. Something like 4 years ago I won a Shelter test press on eBay. It was for my favourite Shelter record, 'Quest For Certainty', and I ended up paying quite a lot for it. For various reasons I only received it like 4 years after I won it. And I'm not really sure why, but for once I decided to play the record... at which point I realised that there was a small issue - I had not received the record that I had paid for. Rather than the second Shelter 12", I had received a test press of the third, 'Attaining The Supreme'. Instantly I felt disappointed.

It's not that I don't like this record. It's just that it's not anywhere near as good as the one that I thought I had bought. WHat made it worse is that I then found out that one of these had sold on discogs, for about a third of the price I had paid. So not only had I got the wrong record, I had overpaid for the one I did get.

The main problem was the amount of time that had passed between winning it on eBay and realising there was a problem. So I couldn't really raise it with the seller, right? Well, I decided to get in touch with the seller anyway. It was quite funny because I opened with 'I bought a record from you on eBay and it's not the record that it was suposed to be' and the response was 'I haven't sold anything on eBay for over 4 years'. Haha! I think the seller was worried that I was trying to be difficult and expect him to rectify the situation, but in reality I just wanted to know if he actually had the other record and had sent the wrong one by mistake, or whether he'd listed the only record he had but somehow just got mised up and typed the wrong name. It turns out that he actually thought that this was indeed a 'Quest For Certainty' test press, and he had no other Shelter tests at all. Given the amount of time that passed I didn't bother asking for a refund or anything, but I Was still a little bummed about missing out on the record I wanted, so I then asked if he happened to know anyone else who may have a 'Quest For Certainty' test press. 'Maybe'...

To be continued...