Hi 'poco' - I understand what you're saying about computers and fonts, I was actually speaking from a marketing and advertising perspective, having spent many years in that field.
There are two schools of thought on this: either make it plain vanilla sans-serif Arial, so that everybody, no matter how old and cumbersome or how small and poor in resolution his computer is, will be able to read it, or make it beautiful and exciting, knowing you may be cutting out some people (or at least making it more difficult for them to read).
Now I was taking a look at the OP's listing text from my laptop, which is an HP with Windows 7, only a couple of years old, and I could honestly barely read it (not that my vision is great). It looked really small, virtually illegible on my laptop, and, what I thought was worse, completely dull and uninteresting as advertising copy. My apologies to the OP by the way, I don't mean to be insulting, but the actual impact of the description is another piece of the picture to consider.
I wonder, 'poco', in light of what you've said, why the text wouldn't have adjusted itself to a more normal reading size on my laptop. It looked like about 6 or 8pt, which is far too small to comfortably read on a screen. I realize that users can manually adjust the viewing size of their text, but if a buyer is browsing from one seller to another, this could get rather cumbersome. From my viewpoint however, the real problem was the unexciting and unprofessional look of the text for an item for which the OP was asking $499 (I believe that was the price?).
I would say from my own observations on eBay that many - in fact a majority -- of sellers don't appreciate that their listing descriptions are in fact advertising copy. They really, mostly, don't make use of tools that are available to give visual impact and style to their listing text. And it's really not hard to do.
I certainly would never advise using a weird or bizarre or really arcane font type (like Blackadder or some of the "script" fonts). However, Verdana and Tahoma are employed a great deal in web design -- they are sans-serif, but have a classy, stylish look that Arial just can't match. Of course to advertising and marketing people, fonts are a huge subject of interest and importance! People have made their fortunes and careers on designing new ones, and you're right, the Europeans are especially good at this.
I generally prepare my listings on my main PC, and check them on my laptop. Because I sell antique sewing patterns and other vintage items, I use "Georgia", which I admit is a bit of an arcane font, but the serif fonts are more appropriate for "antique" advertising. I prepare the text in Auctiva, using generally 14 or 16pt. I do see the font size adjustment you refer to when viewing on my laptop, but it's not drastic, perhaps a couple of points. I just think that if the OP sticks with the miniscule font he's using, he may be causing a lot of potential buyers some real problems. I certainly found it very difficult to read his description because of the tiny size, and as I said, I'm not using an older device.
From an advertiser's point of view, there is also the issue of word recognition and ambiguity using sans-serif fonts. Especially with narrow fonts like Arial and Helvetica many letters are undifferentiated and can cause confusion or difficulty in comprehension for that reason. These fonts were originally designed to maximize the use of print space (on paper) and minimize production issues (and costs), which is why Arial was such a revolutionary font and became extremely popular. They spilled over into the computer industry as a result, but neither font is known for its high legibility. For that, the book and magazine trade still prefers the serif typefaces.
To give an example, in Arial and other fonts in that family, I's look exactly like l's. (that was "I" and "l"). The font in brackets was Times New Roman, and you can see the difference between the letters. In the narrow sans-serif fonts, you can also get problems of visual run-together in very small sizes, where the word gets hard to read because the font is so plain and closely packed. These are issues marketers, advertisers, designers and print media people really grapple with, believe me! I've sat in meetings where hours were spent looking at and debating the merits of fonts.
This long-winded dissertation is probably more than anyone here ever wanted to know about font design and advertising, but it's the other side of the coin. My personal favourite font? Palatino Linotype - an elegant, flowing, calming and easily-read font that isn't too much "in your face". And yes, fonts are actually described in the trade as having personalities or characters!
So I suppose the OP has to make a choice between a completely universal font or a more stylish and impactful font that may possibly be an issue for some people. The reason I suggested 14pt is that on devices that shrink the font size (to say 12 or 10pt) it will still be comfortably readable , whereas on other devices it will look relatively normal.
I would think that most newer mobile devices and computers can handle font reading from eBay. Or perhaps eBay has managed this issue somehow? You know, I think this is my next Wednesday's question for the "Pinks"!
