New Auction searching and tracking website: bid-brain.com

[dstudeba]

With so many auctions going on I am sure we have all had the problem of missing items we wanted and forgetting when auctions are ending with items we want. I wrote a program to combine multiple auctions into one searchable database. The program also allows you to save the searches and email hits out when new auctions come online. If you want to follow an item's bidding progress the program will track it and email you either when a certain bid level is reached or when any bid comes in on that item.

And it is free.

Currently these Auction Houses are tracked:

Love of the Game Auctions
Robert Edwards Auctions
Joe's Vintage Sports Cards Auctions
Sterling Auctions
SCP Auctions
Goodwin & Company
Legendary Auctions
Collect Auctions
Greg Bussineau Sports Rarities
Huggins and Scott Auctions
Brockelman & Luckey Auctions

http://bid-brain.com

Here is the pitch:

Today there are so many auction houses and multiple auctions ending every week. Bidding in and tracking these auctions is difficult with all the rest of one's commitments. Not to mention the concerns with leaving your maximum bids in the auction house's system. Now all of the auction lots you are interested in can be tracked in one place by a third party. You can be notified when each new bid is made on a lot or when the lot reaches a certain bid level.

Search

All current auctions we track are downloaded into our database. These auctions can be searched by keywords from one interface. Links are provided to go to the original listing on the auction house's site. Searches can be saved for automated notification when new auctions come online with items that match your search. Notifications can be set up for any of the monitored auctions. These notifications can be configured to be sent when a certain bid level is reached or for every bid placed.

Monitor

All of the auctions are monitored from the start to the end of the auction. You select the price levels that are important to you. The levels are not disclosed to any other party especially the auction house. There is no need to worry about leaving a max bid or being outbid late in the auction without knowing.

Notify

Emails and text messages can be sent whenever a lot you are following has a bid of importance to you. Daily or weekly reports are also prepared for all of the lots you are tracking. Don't worry about ever missing a bid or the end of an auction again.

Searching Mossi returns hits from 3 different auctions at once:
(also note that Mossi isn't in any of the titles)

http://bid-brain.com/documentation/Mossi_small.jpg

Lots to track can either be entered on the Track Lots page or from the Search Results page by clicking on the logo that looks like this:

http://bid-brain.com/adoptLogo.jpg

Searches can be saved and run from the website manually, or automatically when a new auction comes online.

http://bid-brain.com/documentation/MySearchesExample.jpg


There is also and auction calendar for all upcoming auctions whether they are tracked or not.

http://bid-brain.com/documentation/Calendar.jpg


This has been in testing for about 2 months and has worked with many auctions. However I would love to hear suggestions and any problems that people have with the program. Much of the current functionality was implemented after being suggested by early users.

http://bid-brain.com

Dan Studebaker
danstudebaker@gmail.com

[bn2cardz]

Can you limit searches within parameters? For instance you are looking for a t206 Cobb with a Tolstoi back OR a El Principe De Gales back without doing two separate searches?

I saw this:

You can search on multiple words and parts of words. Searches are not case sensitive.

1952 Mantle will return all 1952 Mantles; Bowman, Topps, graded and ungraded


You may also use * as a wildcard

195* Mantle will return all Mantles, 1950-1959

Please note that eBay searches for 195* Mantle will return all Mantles with only 195 in their title, namely the 1975 Topps MVP card #195 of Mantle and Aaron.


You may exclude results with the minus character (-) immediately before the word to exclude from the search

1954 Mantle -Bowman will return Topps, Dan-Dee, Mantle photos from 1954, etc. but exclude 1954 Bowman Mantles


Commas or spaces may be used to separate search terms.

On ebay you can use parenthesis to enclose a list of words that will allow "any of these" searches. Is that available?

[dstudeba]

Currently there is not or functionality so you would have to do two searches or something ugly like:

t206 cobb -piedmont -sweet -caporal -polar -bear -broadleaf -soveriegn .....

However if it were in a group the second search would probably be bad.

Good idea though, I will add it to the list of improvements.

Thanks!

[bn2cardz]

Currently there is not or functionality so you would have to do two searches or something ugly like:

t206 cobb -piedmont -sweet -caporal -polar -bear -broadleaf -soveriegn .....

However if it were in a group the second search would probably be bad.

Good idea though, I will add it to the list of improvements.

Thanks!


It would be appreciated. I have a more complicated one that goes beyond t206 because I am wanting to do a e92 image front back run. Those image are found in t216, e106, e90, e92, d303, e101, and e102 so just for that I would have 7 searches.

[asphaltman]

Very nice Dan - will be fun trying it out and playing with it.

[tombocombo]

hi i see you put a ton of work in thank you im trying to search 1952 topps in the auction house omitting ebay is that possible thank you

[dstudeba]

Thanks for the kind words, I appreciate it.

Thomas - If you go to the Search page and uncheck the Search eBay listing options you won't get any eBay listings. It will then turn off eBay searching for the rest of the session or until you turn it back on. Below is an example of a search that will only return hits with 1952 topps in the title or description of Auction house listings. Unfortunately as I was checking my explanation I found a problem with the database configuration that has caused description searching to fail. I have removed description searching temporarily, and now know what I will be doing for Saturday. Sorry for the inconvenience.

http://bid-brain.com/documentation/SearchNoEbay.jpg

[D.P.Johnson]

Impressive work Dan. I look forward to trying it out...

[tombocombo]

wow very pleased Dan Studebaker amazing work thank you. the search without ebay is very useful.

[dstudeba]

Hi Thomas, glad you found it helpful.

Full description searching is now up again. Thank you for asking the question as it forced me to reconfigure the search which is now faster for both title and description searching.

[slidekellyslide]

WOW! This is awesome....thanks for your hard work Dan!

edited to add: Will you be adding Hunt Auctions?

[Zach Wheat]

Dan,

You've put a lot of work into this......very nice. I am having difficulty using my iPad for searches. The search comes up quickly with results and then disappears after a half second. This happens even when logged in.

I like your site...nice.

Zach wheat

[dstudeba]

There are a number of auction houses that I would like to include, Hunt Auctions being among them. In general for any auction houses that are not tracked mention them to me, but more importantly the auction house as they want customers telling them they need it, not just me. :)

As auction houses are added and auctions go live I update the facebook page so that is an easy place to monitor news.

https://www.facebook.com/bidbrain

[dstudeba]

Hi Zach,

Glad you like the site! I tried to reproduce your problem on an iPad using version 7.0.3 but couldn't see the problem. If you have other information or thoughts I would love to hear them. The site was optimized for the chrome browser, but has been tested on most mobile devices through their native web browsers. However the testing was not rigorous across all platforms so I am sure there are problems I missed.

- Dan

[pawpawdiv9]

trying it for a special item, and excluding any Ebay junk for sure.

[thecatspajamas]

Looks great! Simple and straightforward, and seemed to work well for the few searches I tested out.

Am I correct in assuming that as new auction houses are added, any existing saved searches will be extended to those as well?

[kamikidEFFL]

nice site for sure def bookmarking this

[Jay Wolt]

Dan this is a great aid, thank you for doing all of this work.

[bn2cardz]

It was nice to get an email today showing me all the stuff in the B-L auction I would be searching for before I even knew that the preview was up.

[TUM301]

Nice job. Did a few practice runs and like the results. Already added to the favs list.

[conor912]

Cool site. I will use it for sure. A couple issues on my end: 1) there seems to be a problem tracking my auctions. I hit the "track" button but nothing shows up in my "tracked items". And 2) I'm looking at a particular item that your site says ends 2/26, but the clock for the item page on the AHs site says 4 days (thur 2/27).

[ethicsprof]

dan,
many,many thanks.
your hard work and contribution to the hobby is very much needed and
appreciated.
all the best,
barry

[dstudeba]

Am I correct in assuming that as new auction houses are added, any existing saved searches will be extended to those as well?


Hi Lance,

Yes, whenever a new auction house that is tracked starts an auction your search will be run against the lots and the hits sent to you. It will work the same way with auction houses that are added.

- Dan

[dstudeba]

Cool site. I will use it for sure. A couple issues on my end: 1) there seems to be a problem tracking my auctions. I hit the "track" button but nothing shows up in my "tracked items". And 2) I'm looking at a particular item that your site says ends 2/26, but the clock for the item page on the AHs site says 4 days (thur 2/27).

Thanks Conor for the excellent catches. Please check the tracked auctions page again as they should now be showing up. As for the date problem, you are correct, I forgot about the fact that Legendary is closing over two nights. I will look into correcting that tomorrow.

[dstudeba]

Can you limit searches within parameters? For instance you are looking for a t206 Cobb with a Tolstoi back OR a El Principe De Gales back without doing two separate searches?

On ebay you can use parenthesis to enclose a list of words that will allow "any of these" searches. Is that available?

I have just added this search functionality. It uses the same format as eBay so the search above is:

t206 Cobb (Tolstoi,El Principe De Gales)

which generated the following hits.

http://bid-brain.com/documentation/SearchOr.jpg

It would be appreciated. I have a more complicated one that goes beyond t206 because I am wanting to do a e92 image front back run. Those image are found in t216, e106, e90, e92, d303, e101, and e102 so just for that I would have 7 searches.

I tested your search and it pulls up multiple cards for the same player using one search:

player name (t216,e106,e90,e92,d303,e101,e102)

Thanks for your input, I hope it helps you.

[bn2cardz]

Thanks. This is a very great tool. I am glad that I have already gotten two emails using this tool and it helps a lot. The auction sites should love it too because it is advertising for their sites with direct emails showing what that auction may have for each individual.

[thecatspajamas]

Thanks. This is a very great tool. I am glad that I have already gotten two emails using this tool and it helps a lot. The auction sites should love it too because it is advertising for their sites with direct emails showing what that auction may have for each individual.

Amen to that!

I think if you could get Hunt Auctions and platform-wide inclusion of all the sites using SimpleAuction's software, you would just about have all the bases covered.

I know a lot of you are card guys, but I cannot emphasize enough how helpful something like this that will search descriptions on multiple sites is for memorabilia collectors where there is no real "standard" name or call numbers to search titles for. It allows for more creativity when searching for those oddball items that you might otherwise overlook in listings with unpredictable titles and overall photos of collections that don't prominently show what you're looking for.

Kudos to Dan, both for developing the site, and for implementing several requests already. I think you're really onto something here. Keep up the good work!