Card rage

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Posted By: tbob

Much like road rage. Does anyone else ever experience it? When someone snipes you repeatedly on cards with no one else bidding: at first it is an oddity, then it becomes a curiosity, then it becomes a pain and then you start looking for auctions he has bid on to return the favor. The problem is that with the sniping services a lot of people now never bid on an item until the snipe hits home.
When I was younger I would have chewed nails. Now, I just file it away and tell myself, "boy I hope this guy asks me a favor someday."

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Posted By: T206Collector

...I only won one of the e95's I bid on tonight (thought I did snipe you on that one):

8700669616 $42.41 1909 E95 Philly Caramel Ed Reulbach SGC Card 30

But I lost these, using the same sniping service:

8700671630 $21.66 1909 E95 Philly Caramel Tommy Leach SGC Card 20
8700672100 $100.99 1909 E95 Philly Caramel Larry Doyle SGC Card 40
8700695822 $47.16 1909 E95 Philly Caramel Ed Willetts SGC Card 30
8700697037 $148.66 1909 E95 Philly Caramel Art Devlin SGC Card 60
8700700782 $77.16 1909 E95 Philly Caramel Nick Maddox SGC Card 40

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Posted By: Chad

I got bid up today on a lot of strip cards. Like an idiot, I got caught up in the bidding and paid more than I wanted. Out of curiosity I checked the items my one competitor has bought and, besides a few miscellaneous 50's commons, it was mostly the new stuff--parallells and inserts and such. I wonder why he suddenly was interested in "my" lot of w513's, a set I didn't think had much mass appeal. Oh well. It was good for the seller from whom I've gotten good stuff from for cheap. I'll chalk it up to karma.

--Chad

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Posted By: Steve Dawson

I'm going through a cold streak right now.

In the past couple of weeks, I've been outsniped on a T207 Speaker, T3 Keeler, E90-1 Matthewson, E95 Wagner, E95 Plank, T201 Bridwell/Matthewson, N162 Kelly and T202 Oleary/Cobb/Desparate Slide.
I haven't won anything since late August...a T206 Evers batting w/Cubs shirt.




Steve

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Posted By: tbob

Steve- I know exactly what you mean. I haven't won anything (other than a BIN or two) on ebay in forever. If not for the B/S/T thread and fellow collectors, I would be 0 for the last 2 months.
Bob

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Posted By: barry arnold

i think you've come up with a new 'pathology' for the
psychiatric (DSM IV) manual, tbob, and i have it. Card rage.
at least,i have it when i come back in the evening after having left
what i thought were 'safe bids to win' and found myself 'whupped'
again and again.
i've thought about not taking my wife out to eat on the weekends (so i can keep my eyes on ebay for hours at a time)
but she's a jewel, and, as you may remember, buys me 206's once
in a while.

Barry

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Posted By: Kenny Cole

Used to be, there were a few people who I had a gentleman's agreement with that whoever saw it first and bid on it first didn't have me to contend with. That seems to be no longer the case. What goes around comes around.

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Posted By: Paul Stratton

Excellent phrase Bob. I've often wondered what it was I was feeling after getting sniped on something that nobody else seemed to want for 6 days 23 hours and 59 seconds.

Then see it on their website for double the price!

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Posted By: barrysloate

I know people get frustrated when they don't win many auction lots, but the fact is the lot goes to the highest bidder. No reason to get angry just because somebody placed a higher bid. Using the snipe service is fair and square. And some have more money than others, you can't help that. I would get angry if I felt something unethical was done by the winning bidder, but how can you blame somebody just for being willing to pay a little more than you. And everyone knows that on ebay the first 6 days, 23 hours, 59 minutes, and 50 seconds mean a lot less than the last 10 seconds.

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Posted By: dennis

it's not that someone is not interested but rather watching it and putting in their best bid at the last minute. it's not when you bid but how much you bid.i lose a lot of auctions too and it is frustrating!

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Posted By: pete

it bothers me since the cards i'm bidding on are for my personal collection...and when i get outbid at the last second, i only hope that person is doing the same and not just planning on turning it around a few weeks later...b*stards!

for the cards i plan on re-selling within a year or two, that doesnt bother me at all...
pete-

my best pitch was the one that made it to the plate!

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Posted By: Dan Lundrigan

TBob sounds as if you know who the person is that outbid you not just his username.Why not try contacting him,maybe he was upgrading some of those cards you were outbid on.Ask if he has a lower grade one to sell,just a thought.Maybe a more accurate term should be SNIPE RAGE!I hate it when I get sniped.Nobody on the internet can hear my screams,but my neighbors think I have Touretts!

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Posted By: dennis

pete about a year ago i was outbid ,in a 2 week period,on 3 1935 goudey cards by kityoung cards and the only thing i can get some satisfaction from is my snipes were pretty high so they did not get that good of a price, as i know these weren't for his collection! yes it does suck getting outbid by the flippers of ebay!

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Posted By: T206Collector

If you bid on an ebay auction with more than 30 seconds left you are simply throwing money away. Better yet, make it 20 or 15 seconds. This is a no-brainer. I can honestly say that in the last five years of ebaying, I have never bid seriously on an auction with more than 30 seconds left. It is not only a huge waste of money, but it invites the kind of sniping that is so obviously irksome. The only reason you should bid on an auction with more than 30 seconds left is if you are best friends with the seller and want to drive the price up for him.

The reason ebay created a "watched items" function is to facilitate monitoring an auction without having to bid on it. Watch all the items you wants, but then sit at your computer hitting refresh (or use a sniping service if you're not going to be at your computer) until the auction winds to a close. Then put your bid in.

Seriously, people bidding hundreds of dollars on cards with 3 days remaining is one of my pet peeves. The only function served by this is driving up the price and almost ensuring that you will never win an auction for anything good.

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Posted By: Scott Forrest

About a year ago there was someone who paid through the roof for any photo by Conlon, Thompson, Bain, etc. It was frustrating because I only wanted a few and he seemed to bid indiscriminately and was my only competition. So I did experience what you describe, and started running him up $100 or so on each photo...didn't slow him down a bit. Eventually he got bored with photos and I was able to get a few I wanted, but not the Conlon Nap Rucker

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Posted By: warshawlaw

I use the snipe service so I don't have to add watching auctions to my list of stuff to remember. As far as I am concerned, if someone wants something more than I do and I put my best bid in there, fair enough.

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Posted By: Julie Vognar

I know that to win a desirable card, you have to snipe really high, and sometimes, I just don't have the dough, so I pray that nobody will oput-snipe me (b ut I know in my heart they will)I've been outbid on abouit 5 of the last 7 auctions I've bid in.

Why ANYONE would show a bid, before sniping, on a card he really wanted--I simply don't understanbd. People will see your name, and bid accordingly! Even if you DON'T really want the thing much, and were just throwing a bid in
--if people think you MIGHT really want it, they will snipe accordingly! (you may be almost flat beroke, but they don't know that!)

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Posted By: Chad

I show early bids on cards once in a while if I think the card is ONLY a bargain at its opening bid and that others might think the same thing. If it's a 20 dollar card, and the opening bid is 19.99, I'll go ahead and bid right away with the idea that people aren't going to want to get in a bidding war for something that's not a bargain. It works a lot of the time. Most of the time I snipe, tho. We all have our theories and practices we're comfortable when it comes to Ebay, I guess.

--Chad

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Posted By: Jim Novotny

I guess that I am just old fashioned. I bid the maximum amount for a card that I want to pay, I dont use a sniping service and I probably bid too early (beyond 30 seconds). So far it has worked for me, but I am new to the hobby and havent had the money yet to go after the more expensive cards. I guess I am still playing in the minor leagues.

Ive learned to avoid Card Rage for 2 reasons: 1) I feel good that I am keeping the prices up in the hobby and 2) knowing that I am avoiding the Spouse Rage for overspending.

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Posted By: tbob

Can't be me, tbob October 3 2005, 9:35 PM
...I only won one of the e95's I bid on tonight (thought I did snipe you on that one)>>

Hmmm, that makes, what 5 caramel cards you've sniped me on the past couple of weeks?......

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Posted By: jay behrens

The only time I really had this experience was when I was seriously collecting Indian cards. I used to be able to pick up A&G Indians for $20-25 each. Then one day, this guy shows up buying every Indian card in sight. I decided on one auction to push his bid. I quit at $125 and still wasn't the high bidder. Every time I saw his name on an auction, I punched in $125 bid. The guy put together a very expensive set by the time he was done.

This also points out that you need to change up your bids. If you run across a vindictive SOB like me and bid consistantly, you are going to end up paying a lot more than you really want to.

Jay

My place is full of valuable, worthless junk.

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Posted By: T206Collector

Since September 17 -- but you get outsniped all the time by tons of people. You also win your fair share of auctions. But rest assured, I do not look to see what tbob has bid on to determine where I'll be bidding next. I'm only after T206 and E95 cards that I need to complete/upgrade those sets.

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Posted By: Frank Wakefield

Well I bid on cards sometimes with 6 days left... and I'm serious about my bid when I do that. I don't consider it money thrown away...

While on occasion, if convenient, I've engaged in "time sensitive bidding", I've not used a snipe service, and plan on never doing so. If you guys think bidding with 3 days to go is throwing money away, I guarantee you paying someone to bid for you is financially wastefull. Bid yourself for free.

Card Rage is a well coined term. And at times I've bid more than I initially intended, with seconds to go, such is the power of a cable modem that allows for multiple bids with 10 seconds to go. Took me a few auctions to mature beyond falling into the false goal of "winning" the auction instead of the item.

Some folks have convinced me that if I do bid early, folks can see what I'm bidding on, and search via the bidder. I see the truth of that, because I've done that myself. Still, I like to bid on stuff, not just watch everything then bid with a short time to go.

So keep on paying a service to snipe for you with seconds to go, but you might be a more intelligent bidder when you understand there's a place for different strategies.

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Posted By: Brian

Frank:

I hate paying a sniping service and rarely use one. But on occassion I do use one, espicially on an auction that I don't want to bid early and can't afford having computer problems at the last second. Late night auctions as well that I will not or cannot be up for. Like you, I also have cable but have been victim of the occasional outage or computer freeze. Snipe services mitigate that.

Brian E.

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Posted By: Bryan

I know exactly who you are referring to. I got so annoyed with him I would overbid on photos just to make him pay for them. I am sure he didn't care though. Probobly worth it to him. Eventually I got a couple of Conlon photos.

Sniping is the nature of the beast. Card Rage is when someone you sniped emails and threatens you. That is a little extreme.

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Posted By: Nick

I tend to bid early, because I'm a lowball bidder and often bidding on cheap items.

I snipe manually sometimes, but never through a service.

If I don't win something I really like, there's enough other stuff coming along for me to spend the money on.

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Posted By: T206Collector

The only early bid strategy that makes any sense to me is setting a number above which no reasonable person would go, and even then I find it a bit suspect because when it comes to auctions, people are not reasonable. Again, the earlier you bid, the more you are likely to pay for an item; the more you are likely to lose a bid for an item; and the more money you are giving to the seller.

Think of it this way -- if everyone had to place just one blind bid on an item, then it wouldn't matter when that bid was placed. But since we are all privy to early bid information, the only logical thing to do is to create a universe where bids are essentially blind, i.e., with 10 seconds to go in an auction, where the opportunity for increasing a bid after seeing it fall short is negligible. If everyone sniped auctions, things would go a lot cheaper because no one would be able to adjust their prior threshold bid to a new threshold bid.

All you early bidders out there, next time you bid in an auction, check the bid history after your bid is acknowledged as the highest bid. Every time you see a bidder place more than one bid afterwards is a bid that would not have been made if you and everyone else interested in the item had sniped the auction.

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Posted By: Rob (NYC)

What is the closest time that most snipes occur? Ten seconds? Five seconds? I usually do a manual snipe with 5 seconds left at about an extra 10% more than my persnal max. If it gets sniped after that, someone out there wanted more than I did and/or has more firepower than I have. Either way, I tried and won't be disappointed.

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Posted By: barrysloate

I find that even if you manually put a bid in with 20-30 seconds to go there still isn't enough time for another bidder to see your bid, recalculate his maximum, and get it in under the gun. The bottom line is not when you snipe but how high your bid is. If I put in a $1000 ceiling on a $100 lot the day before and you bid $500 with 5 seconds left, you still lose.

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Posted By: jay behrens

I drop in early bids on items all the time. Part of it is for tracking ourposes, but it is also a bid that if I win, I got a nice lot at a good price. I almost never go back and bid a second time on something I bid on early. I've had pretty good success with this. Most of the time, I get outbid, but I win often enough to make worthwhile to make these bids.

Something I really want, I will snipe.

Jay

My place is full of valuable, worthless junk.

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Posted By: T206Collector

<<If I put in a $1000 ceiling on a $100 lot the day before and you bid $500 with 5 seconds left, you still lose.>>

Exactly. If everyone bid with 5 seconds left, there would be no room for any of us to move up into your $1000 ceiling. However, if you bid $1000 the day before, then you are giving scores of people the opportunity to bid up into your ceiling, when they find out that their own ceiling of $500 is not going to cut it. Many of these people will recalculate their own ceilings upwards into your ceiling. What should have been a $500 boon to you will no longer be.

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Posted By: barrysloate

Of course I was just using an example and when you bid early you do just set a target for the other bidders. But my point was it's not who bids last, but who bids highest. Perhaps a better example would be if I bid $1000 with 30 seconds to go and another bidder goes $500 with 5 seconds to go.Then last doesn't matter.

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Posted By: Elliot

30 seconds is plenty of time to get another bid in, if it's not enough. To be safe I think you need to snipe with 10 seconds or less.

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Posted By: barrysloate

30 seconds barely gives another bidder time to get in. If he quickly types in one wrong character, he's done. So make it 20 seconds, if you feel that's safer.

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Posted By: Scott Forrest

Sniping is the way to go.

I enjoy the adrenaline rush of fighting it out at the end for a big auction, but there have been too many times when at the critical moment...

1. Computer froze up or lost my network connection
2. I started writing emails with a few minutes to go, and spaced the damned auction
3. Multiple auctions ended within a short period, and I missed one

On the other hand, when I'm checking on an auction and it just happens to be ending in 10-20 seconds, I figure it's fate and I bid manually and generously.

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Posted By: J Levine

I agree with Jay on this one...I often bid the minimum on a lot just to track it and then either snipe it later if it is something I want or bid quietly at the end of auction. Every now and then, the minimum wins and I am very happy.

My problem is also card rage, I was so darn tired of Bob outbidding me on Obaks that I gave up for awhile...now that he is done, I can get back in the game.

The worst case of card rage I had was getting outbid on a Sealtest Phillie by a $1 for the third time by the same guy. The last one came up five minutes later and I put in a huge bid (I thought)...with 30 seconds he met my high bid and passed it, with 5 seconds to go I put in another bid and won, spending nearly twice what I thought the card was worth....

The upside is that Sealtests are so darn tough, that I got another example about three years later of the same card (for just above my original price to boot) and sold the former one for a small profit!

Joshua

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Posted By: daviddbreadman

Like Jay I only bid early on stuff that I will only want if my 'low bid' gets hit. I'll almost never go back and raise my bid on those. I always snipe manually for any card I really want with 5 secs to go.

As an aside, there is nothing better than waking up in the morning and seeing something you won because of your low bid days earlier and totally forgot about! Its almost as much satisfaction as doing battle with 5 secs left with multiple browser screens open.

For snipes I use 4 browser screens. One with the main list of cards, especially if multiple auctions are ending in a short period of time, another with the card itself up so i may refresh and monitor the price, another with a preset snipe price entered and ready for verification with 5 secs and a final browser with the bid price not entered so i may adjust quickly with a few secs to go in case the price rises and i just want to add a few more bucks. i can usually complete the screen with 10 seconds left, that's my point of no success. That's how its possible to adjust with under 12 seconds go to. It may be alot of work, but I love the battle and wouldn't change my methods for the world!

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Posted By: jay behrens

Davis, sounds like you snipe the way I do, only I use 3 screens instead of 4. With a cable connection, I no longer have to worry about dropped connections.

David makes a good point to, when I drop in one of those low bids and then days later you get a notice that you won the auction, it's like Christmas come early and nice unexpected surprise.

For me, the really bad thing about not bidding on something I really want right away is that some times I forget to check MyeBay and it will slip past me, like that lot of '39 Play Balls. Those were supposed to be my cards Zachs! Give 'em back or I will attack you!!! :-p (How's that for some card rage)

Jay

My place is full of valuable, worthless junk.

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Posted By: Julie Vognar

It pops into my mind ALL DAY LONG, and I have to keep myself from Thinking About It so nobody will see it plastered on my forehead!