Disappointing
I was really excited to find the Tesbihane shop online. For as long as I can remember, the only way to get the wonderful Turkish tesbihs was to travel to Istanbul and buy them oneself. Here was finally a way of buying without having to travel. I therefore ordered a selection of tesbihs that were beautiful, a bit pricey, but if the pictures and descriptions held true, they would be well worth the price. I received an email saying that the items would be sent within 30 days as the master craftsman would make the items of my order. That certainly sounded promising.
About 30 days later, the items were sent, and some of them are indeed beautiful. However, the most expensive tesbih is not as pictured. The silver adornments are crooked and look mostly like an experiment gone wrong. But the design of the silver is wrong (crooked or not) in comparison with the picture of the tesbih I thought I bought. Another tesbih has several pieces that are broken off, but the pieces are nowhere to be found in the box. So I can only conclude that it was broken before being packed.
I was very disappointed and wrote about this to Tesbihane. They answered that I could send the items back, but that I would have to pay for transport of the items to Tesbihane and back again to me. They did not mention that an error could have occurred nor did they excuse the faults. I was reluctant to send the items back. Firstly because the order was already expensive. Transport twice would make it even more expensive. Secondly because: how could I know that if, indeed, I did send the items back, that I would receive anything at all in return - or if they would send me something, that it would not be faulty as well?
I then wrote and suggested that they could send me beads to replace the broken ones, they have not even replied to this.
When buying on the Internet, trust is everything. Rather than buying from Tesbihane online, I recommend traveling to Istanbul and only buying tesbihs IRL there.