In general films I've purchased have arrived to me as described. One however was listed as Very Good, a Walt Disney Fire safety short with intro from Walt and Donald Duck.
Great short, color is ok but it has several lines in it, but the most objectionable one is baffling. It literally has a zigzag black line slap bang in the middle. No idea how you create that kind of mark. Any recommendations on film cleaner brand to see if i can make the marks less offensive. The marks are not emulsion side, so hoping I can lessen or eliminate with cleaning.

I never understand why ok you may not have a projector, but you can take images of the film to gain some insight as to the condition...

Anyone else run into this?

Stuart

I never believe any of it Stuart, simple as that.
The only mitigating circumstances are when someone is selling up and has sold their main projector first.

Even then, when this happens, there are no excuses because you leave yourself without a means to check all what you intend to sell.
Anyone selling up, would at least keep one projector back for checking prints on until all are sold.

The other excuse of course, is when someone has inherited a relative's collection but no projector.

Fine, but then how do they then know for sure the film is in even "good" or "acceptable" condition and therefore should have a start value of £50 instead of 99p?

It's all just kidology my friend, believe me!

The worst ones are those which put images up taken off the internet and then state these images are not from the film. Whats the point of that?
Seems good but untested is another one.

Yes I've come across that or the Very Good Condition and you read the description and its either turned or a splicey print, obviously there all used car salesmen haha

Print is in great condition! Eastman color has shifted to red.

Er...

Colour shift and condition I do believe are legitimately, two separate issues regarding film.

Colour shift (if applicable) should be described separately to condition as they are two completely separate things imo.
There is little anyone can do to avoid colour shift on a print, especially when on Eastman etc.
A set of screenshots provides me personally with all I need to know surrounding this issue.

A print in my opinion can feasibly be described as in excellent condition while still containing SOME fade, so long as it isn't completely red and as long as all below is above and beyond the norm with these things.

Condition should describe such things as scratches, neg marks, print blotches, quality of the negative used for printing it, therefore grain and sharpness etc etc.
As well as this, film stock preferably should be mentioned where it can be identified and also importantly, quality of stripe, type of stripe, quality of soundtrack on either the main or balance stripe or both where applicable.

If I have all this information to hand when deciding upon a purchase, plus the proof by accompanying screenshots etc, then I'm happy.

Seldom am I entirely happy with people's descriptions regarding films offered up for sale.
Even less so for the very expensive ones ironically!

If sellers have nothing to hide, why not give a detailed accurate description of their films offered for sale?

Anyone who regularly and reliably does,.. instantly sees the benefits of doing so by the prices reached and the shear amount of interest generated by their goods.

What I have found bizarrely over the years, is there are plenty of people trying to sell films that want "A" grade prices for "C or D" grade prints.
Why these characters should expect this to be acceptable behaviour is quite frankly, utterly beyond my comprehension.

Two descriptions that have stuck in my mind (and are a bit humorous) are "the roll looks to be in good condition" and "I don't have a reel-to-reel to test it" (he he). :-)