[P-man]

How do you buy chemicals off e-bay? Where do you find them?

[pantone159]

Nowadays, the right category seems to be:
  Business & Industrial / Health Care, Lab & Life Science / Lab Supplies / Lab Chemicals

Note that some suppliers may have an 'eBay Store' besides the normal auction listings.

There used to be some kind of 'science' category much closer to the top of the tree than there is now.  It has been a while since I bought anything off eBay (mainly element samples), and they used to be a lot easier to find.  I wonder if eBay has become 'disapproving' of 'dangerous' stuff.  Dave Hamric once told me that they griped about things like sodium metal.

[woelen]

Finding chemicals from eBay is not that difficult, but this only is true for USA and Canada residents. If you perform a search on eBay for a chemical name, then for quite some compounds an item pops up. Unfortunately it is always in the USA and they only ship to Canada or the USA.

Finding elements is a little easier, at least for the less dangerous ones (metals, except the alkali and earth alkali metals and mercury). Elements like selenium and tellurium also can be obtained.

[limpet chicken]

Bee careful, ebay and paypal bend over backwards to kiss the arse of LE, order something suspicious, even for legit purposes, and you might well get a visit from the pigs, if you order anything remotely clandestine friendly, don't order it to your own place.

[P-man]

What sould I do then? Mail it to a friend or something? My dad's work? Grandfather?

[limpet chicken]

Thats what I do, send it to someone I know in the US, who manually reships it.

"Cant" ship things, is a bunch of bulls&$#, WON'T ship, is more accurate.

Pricks.

[P-man]

But what kind of stuff do they not want to ship?

[pantone159]

I've always just shipped stuff to my real home address.  But I live in USA, if you don't that may be a problem.

[constant thinker]

I hope you realize Mark Kness that some chemicals are monitored by the government. Large purchases or frequent purchases can cause red flags especially with terrorism. I believe sulfur, iodine, pseudoephidrine, and various nitrates are all things that will cause red flags for reasons ranging from bombs to drugs.

[joeflsts]

I hope you realize Mark Kness that some chemicals are monitored by the government. Large purchases or frequent purchases can cause red flags especially with terrorism. I believe sulfur, iodine, pseudoephidrine, and various nitrates are all things that will cause red flags for reasons ranging from bombs to drugs.

You correct and so is Mark.  If you do the research you will learn the "threshold" of each "watched" chemical.  Anyone reaching the posted thresholds has most likely moved from hobby chemist to manufacturer.

Read the regs, not on a forum, but on the actual publishing site and educate yourself (last comment posted to all).  Most of the "warnings" on this and other forums is inaccurate and fueled by paranoia.

Joe

Joe

[P-man]

Thanks for everything. Now I can buy chemicals off ebay in relative safety .

[linus]

I don't think e-bay is a good place to buy chemicals.

If you are in europe search the catalog of reagents4research.com

Regards.

[alancj]

Bee careful, ebay and paypal bend over backwards to kiss the arse of LE, order something suspicious, even for legit purposes, and you might well get a visit from the pigs, if you order anything remotely clandestine friendly, don't order it to your own place.

Do you know this from experience?

I hope you realize Mark Kness that some chemicals are monitored by the government. Large purchases or frequent purchases can cause red flags especially with terrorism. I believe sulfur, iodine, pseudoephidrine, and various nitrates are all things that will cause red flags for reasons ranging from bombs to drugs.

But is that true for eBay? I would think that individual sellers would need to participate in that kind of monitoring. I can see it being true for other professional online chemical sellers. Or, perhaps the "government" monitors every transaction on eBay, keeps a record of all items of interest, and then you get "flagged" if they find that you buy over a threshold? Is there any evidence of this? Or is it mere suspicion?

Just curious,
Alan