Why I said he was black.

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Posted By: Julie Vognar

Sorry, my housemate's computer has not been available to me all day.

I am so racist, I risked getting kicked off of e-bay so a black guy could get the card he wanted cheaper.
Are you guys nuts or something?

As soon as i saw that high bidder had bid $300 (or so) on the 1949 Bowman Doby--a very sweet card, but not, i felt, worth bidding higher than $255 on--I looked up his bidding record to see 1) how he bid 2) with how much money and 3) what he bid on. The first thing i noticed was he hardly ever won anything. Out of 14 auctions he had bid in, he had won maybe three. Then i looked at how he bid. He would see something he liked, and immediately bid the most he possibly could (or would) on it. In other words, he didn't snipe. People would bid up around him, and usually top him.

He had bid EXCLUSIVELY on black people: athletes, "Blaxploitation" films(labled as such) and films that have all-black casts, an interview with Martin Luther King, Jr. in "Coronet" (he was the only bidder on that, so he won it). he bid in 5=6 Jabbar-Alcindor auctions, but couldn't take any of them. He bid on a Taliafero (early, or maybe 1st black quarterback)--no luck--AND he won a rookie Jim Brown for $300 (1959? I think so.) I didn't look at the condition, so I can't say whether he got a deal or not.
That was the only time--except for our mutual '49 Doby, that he showed enough cash to win--that is, if you're going to bid with six days left, instead of six seconds. I remember his NOT bidding on any J. Robinson cards, but on something Robinson-related, but much cheaper. Magazine article? MAYBE comic book, but they can get pretty pricey.

SO. NO< I don't KNOW he was black, IS black, I just know that he's black!

I couldn't verry well answer irate seller's querries with "he's poor, bids bad, and he's black, so i thought I'd do him a real favor, and I'd been bidding up under him SO I BLEW IT ALL TO HELL, and ILLEGALLY RETRACTED MY BID" I just told him to check out bidder's bidding record, which had spoken so eloquently to me, but, since seller continued to harrass me (understandably--I'd said his card "might be trimmed"),I guess he didn't bother to do, or didn't care, or something.

It's possible that high bidder is Chinese, and very wealthy, and just has strange bidding styles.

Sure.

This has only happened to me once before in my life. I mean, being so misunderstood, by a lot of people. I was 15...sorry, it has nothing to do with sports cards.