[78-L] Let's batter the little bitty bidder!

[Cary Ginell]

Sometimes a record will come on that I MUST HAVE, but is not necessarily a collector's item. The record might be worth $15 tops, but I would risk paying over $100 just to guarantee that I will get it. So, like Mike says, I hold back my bid until the last 20 seconds or so, then put in a massive bid, knowing nobody will ever top me. A sign of this is if there are no bids on the item until the last 30 seconds. A collector's item will systematically get bids throughout the week, but an item of marginal attraction might not. Usually there is time for one person to get in a bid against me, but I'm comfortable in knowing I will win. At the end of the auction, I win the item for about $15-$25 at the most, even though my monster bid was something like $222.22. What frustrates me is I would love to give the losing 2nd place winner a "nyah, nyah-nyah, nyah, nyah!" But eBay hides the identities of buyers now, a practice which I actually like.

Another good use of eBay, although I haven't done it often, is to determine the value of a record you own. It will cost you a few bucks - enough to put an impossibly high reserve on it - this was back in the day when there was a flat fee for a reserve price. Now it's based on a sliding scale, the rats. I had a very rare test pressing and wanted to know how much it might fetch. So I put it on with a minimum bid of $9.99 but a reserve of $50,000. Boy, were people getting pissed. Bid after bid would come in and the bidding got up to around $600. People were E-mailing me, trying to get me to tell them what the reserve was, but I never gave in. I think it topped out at around $750.

Cary Ginell

> From: bowiebks at isomedia.com
> To: 78-l at klickitat.78online.com
> Date: Mon, 18 Jan 2010 18:57:11 -0800
> Subject: [78-L] Let's batter the little bitty bidder!
> 
>  snipe at $3.01.  C'mon folks, this can sometimes be FUN!  When people
>  put in early bids, it reveals their technique.  When you snipe, they
>  don't know you are there.
> 
>  Mike (aren't we devils) Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com
> >
> 
> 
> Mike  brings up something else which baffles me.  If I look at an auction 
> and see that a bidder has raised his or her bids several times,  and that 
> the bids go like this:  $11,  $21,  $31,  $41...and that the bidder now has 
> the high bid at $48.22...gee,  I don't need to use my degree in Rocket 
> Science (obtained via mail order)  to figure out that his high bid must 
> be....$51.
> 
> (Some are even worse...they'll bid $5, $10, $15,  $20...I'd love to play 
> poker with people like that,  as I'm sure they would  happily show me the 
> cards they're holding.)
> 
> And,  yes,  as Mike says...it is sort of fun to go ahead and bid $51.01 and 
> take the thing home...assuming you want it,  that is.  That's the "Truth AND 
> Consequences" in a nut shell!
> 
> No one could ever figure out my bidding system because I can't figure it out 
> myself.
> 
> Taylor 
> 
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