Steembay: Auction for one of my Larger Hand Painted Mandala Stones #10 - Handmade Art

I have completed quite a few successful transactions using this community initiative, so I feel encouraged to continue to support the @steembay program on a regular basis!

For me, this is central to eventually creating a Steem-based economy, here in our community, where we can all trade with each other in the "local" currency, rather than having to go through the whole Steem-to-BTC-to-Fiat process. I hope you'll show some support as well, since such initiatives will ultimately turn out to be positive for all of us. 

My Steembay Auction no. 10: Another of my larger Hand Painted Mandala Stones

Free hand painted without copying from stencils, markings or photographs!

Your bid is for: A completely free hand painted beach stone with an intricate geometric mandala design in yellow, white, gold and maroon. Ceramic paints on natural stone as found by me and my wife on our local beaches; painted by me. 

The design is 100% free-hand; I use no photos, sketches, graphics or computer aids; the pattern emerges as I paint.

Has a clear gloss finish coat to protect colored design. A stone of this size and complexity takes me about 4-5 hours to complete and has several hundred individual design elements.

Somewhat thicker oblong shape, very smooth surface. Measures about 3 1/8" (78mm) long by just over 2 1/4" (57mm) across. About 1 3/8" (35mm) thick, at thickest.

Comes in a small organza gift bag with a small pamphlet with more details about my artwork and the process, and why I chose stones to paint on. 

As previously mentioned, one of these days, I will get around to making a full reference post about my artwork... some of you may have noticed occasional photos of them show up in my general posts about creativity.

In the meantime, have a look at the photos, and feel free to ask questions in the comment section! 

Random questions and comments will NOT be read as bidding, so no worries.

Starting bid for this lovely piece is just 5.00 SBD, which is a pretty good deal at current exchange rates for SBD! 

This stone would typically be priced at around 45.00-50.00 USD at one of our gallery outlets, or if we were selling at a festival or street fair.

Auction will run for 7 days-- till this post expires. 

So here's how bidding works:

Reply (directly) to this post with "bid x" (where x is the amount you are willing to bid in SBD). 

Decimals have to be written with a period instead of a comma (5.9, NOT 5,9). Wait for the bot to log in the bid (it will tell you in seconds if it worked... sometimes it takes up to a minute due to transaction failures of the system)

If someone bids higher than you, the bot will reply to your post and reference your username.

The bot will reply to each accepted bid, stating what is actual highest bid and who is the high bidder. The bot will also reply when you are overbid, and state the new high bidder.

If you need to retract your bid just enter "revoke bid"

"Normal" (non-auction) comments will not interfere with the auction, and will not make you a bidder! Upvotes are welcome and accepted with gratitude as any rewards from this post will help cover the cost of shipping the item.  

Shown from a different angle

Shipping is FREE to the USA via first class mail

Ships from Port Townsend, Washington, USA; US shipping is free.

INTERNATIONAL Shipping: This is a little more complicated. The base cost to mail this outside the USA is 22.50 USD via air packet. Sorry, USPS is expensive! However, I am counting on upvotes on this post to help underwrite at least part of the cost of postage, so I am just making non-USA postage a flat 5.00 SBD fee. 

To make this Steemit Official, here's "proof of stone in hand!"

After the Auction:

Payment for winning bid (+ postage costs for non-USA winners) will be in SBD. I will need the winning bidder's contact/shipping information, which we can either exchange via Encrypted Wallet Memos or through Steemit.chat.

Once I have your information, you can pay via direct wallet transfer, and I will ship your item.

I think that about covers it-- otherwise, feel free to ask questions in the comment section! I appreciate your interest, and good luck in the auction!

About SteemBay:

@steembay is basically an auction/for sale utility bot in the manner of eBay, except it runs within the confines of the Steemit ecosystem, and payment is in SBD... so it's an opportunity to actually use your SBD for something other than buying Steem or BTC! And it's a chance for us to develop and support our own economy here!

To learn more about Steembay, there's both the orginal introductory post, as well as a quick tutorial.To see what other people are offering, visit @steembay and click on the most recent "Daily Report of Steembay" post... or you can simply click on the#steembay tag, anywhere you come across it! 

Posted 20180512 16:35 PST