Buyer's conundrum ...

[Snapolit1]

Auction houses seem to me to more often than not land on the most reasonable, market price .... but damm those 18-20% buyer's commissions are a killer ... Even when fully and fairly disclosed they always kill me when I see the "winning" invoice. And the all night auction because someone's bidding on some lot somewhere is annoying and really chaps my ....

EBay BIN is a nice way to go ... Fast and easy ... except that most of them are about 25% minimum over fair market value, looking for someone desperate, uninformed or madly smitten to come along ..... I love when a 60 second Google search shows that the guy with the $2500 BIN bought the very card last week at an auction house for $1750. Nice profit if you can get it.

And regular eBay auctions are maddening in that the real bidding always seems to start with 25 seconds left, and somehow I always seem to lose by $1.25 to some guy who can apparently read my mind. Happens every time.

Oh, and the few card shows I've gone to tend to be ridiculously overpriced. Nice folks, cool to talk with, and 100% of the time more than eBay ....

[pokerplyr80]

That sounds about right. There are a few deals out there though, both on Ebay and major AH sites, if you're lucky enough to find them.

[1952boyntoncollector]

Auction houses seem to me to more often than not land on the most reasonable, market price .... but damm those 18-20% buyer's commissions are a killer ... Even when fully and fairly disclosed they always kill me when I see the "winning" invoice. And the all night auction because someone's bidding on some lot somewhere is annoying and really chaps my ....

EBay BIN is a nice way to go ... Fast and easy ... except that most of them are about 25% minimum over fair market value, looking for someone desperate, uninformed or madly smitten to come along ..... I love when a 60 second Google search shows that the guy with the $2500 BIN bought the very card last week at an auction house for $1750. Nice profit if you can get it.

And regular eBay auctions are maddening in that the real bidding always seems to start with 25 seconds left, and somehow I always seem to lose by $1.25 to some guy who can apparently read my mind. Happens every time.

Oh, and the few card shows I've gone to tend to be ridiculously overpriced. Nice folks, cool to talk with, and 100% of the time more than eBay ....


right you pay that extra money on BINs so you don't keep losing auctions by a dollar and spending 10 hours more trying to get that card and checking auction houses....sometimes paying that 50 bucks over market price saves you those 10 hours....its not all about keeping score.... time is money as well but its a hobby and I know many of us the time is just fun and not money as we can spend 10000 hours just to save 10 bucks and finally win that ebay auction at the price we wanted on the 10th try over 3 years..

[ALR-bishop]

My experience after I retired was that my time was not worth as much but I could not stay awake very late

[Snapolit1]

People can run their auctions houses anyway they want, but I don't see how they are really hurt by a rule that individual items will close after there has been no bid for 15 minutes. If a card has sit for hours it seems awfully unlikely that someone will at that point wake up. (I am sure the logic is you lose one card at 3 am and then suddenly pour money into your second choice.) Seems to me this drain the auction out of the "fun" element that you've actually won something.

[1952boyntoncollector]

People can run their auctions houses anyway they want, but I don't see how they are really hurt by a rule that individual items will close after there has been no bid for 15 minutes. If a card has sit for hours it seems awfully unlikely that someone will at that point wake up. (I am sure the logic is you lose one card at 3 am and then suddenly pour money into your second choice.) Seems to me this drain the auction out of the "fun" element that you've actually won something.

I wish ebay gave you 5 secs after the last bid..don't need 15 mins....5 secs would be fine for me

[Cozumeleno]

I wish ebay gave you 5 secs after the last bid..don't need 15 mins....5 secs would be fine for me

My guess is that eBay and sellers would make more money that way. It would be easy to see prices consistently driven up. For that reason, that's why as a buyer I would hate it. I've gotten some good deals with gavelsnipe as well as paying attention and that would take a lot of the fun out of it.

Even though it would probably be more profitable, I'm not sure they'd go that route. When you see eBay do things like encouraging the Buy It Now function, I think they ultimately want to be more like an Amazon and work on more of a fixed price model utilizing large-volume sellers.

[ALR-bishop]

As long as I have 5 seconds after your last bid, I am good to go :)

[Republicaninmass]

I wish ebay gave you 5 secs after the last bid..don't need 15 mins....5 secs would be fine for me


Just bid higher


Dont forget auction house sales tax and made up shipping charges!

[1952boyntoncollector]

Just bid higher


Dont forget auction house sales tax and made up shipping charges!

I have seen cards for 100s over market price (on a 100 dollar card) because on a 100 dollar card..on guy bids 300 on bay figuring he will get the card a dollar over the 102-120 the last second guy bids but it turns out that last second guy bid 301.....neither guy wanted the card for 300 but thought they would win it in the 100-120 range and didn't want to lose by a dollar...

with 5 secs, you know exactly when to stop......I mean maybe your max bid is 121..but when you lose to a bid of 122..you realize you could of bid 123....its real hard to know what your max max bid is....yes I know it simple just bid exactly the highest amount you would go on the card to the exact cent....its easier said than done...and still hurts if lose by a dollar....if had those extra 5 secs maybe you bid the dollar....and you don't have to bid 300 in my example to make sure you don't lose a 100 dollar card by a dollar...

[Stonepony]

I have seen cards for 100s over market price (on a 100 dollar card) because on a 100 dollar card..on guy bids 300 on bay figuring he will get the card a dollar over the 102-120 the last second guy bids but it turns out that last second guy bid 301.....neither guy wanted the card for 300 but thought they would win it in the 100-120 range and didn't want to lose by a dollar...

with 5 secs, you know exactly when to stop......I mean maybe your max bid is 121..but when you lose to a bid of 122..you realize you could of bid 123....its real hard to know what your max max bid is....yes I know it simple just bid exactly the highest amount you would go on the card to the exact cent....its easier said than done...and still hurts if lose by a dollar....if had those extra 5 secs maybe you bid the dollar....and you don't have to bid 300 in my example to make sure you don't lose a 100 dollar card by a dollar...

You are assuming the winning bidder only bid a dollar more than you. More likely the winning bidder had a snipe or max bid significantly higher than yours and your $1 or 10$ extra would not be enough anyway. I've said it before ...If you really want the card, bid like you really want the card. Others will and you will lose most the time.

[Republicaninmass]

I think I've lost by a penny before. If you get that close to the high bidder, it is very frustrating. Auction houses and their 7-10% increments make the whole strategy much different

[1952boyntoncollector]

You are assuming the winning bidder only bid a dollar more than you. More likely the winning bidder had a snipe or max bid significantly higher than yours and your $1 or 10$ extra would not be enough anyway. I've said it before ...If you really want the card, bid like you really want the card. Others will and you will lose most the time.

I have actually tied and lost before...so yeah I am assuming that was the winning bidders high bid .....like I said..sometimes its hard to know the exact penny you will bid up to unless you have a few seconds to make the decision.....maybe you are bidding on 5 different items and you cant afford to buy all of them.....once you lose out on 3 of them maybe you can bid a bit more on the other 2....and they all are ending at the same time in this example....easier said than done about placing snipe bids in all instances..