Like I didn't already know this was going to happen...

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

Seller ended the auction early. I wonder who stole this one?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ih=009&item=190005136191&rd=1&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWA%3AIT&rd=1

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Posted By: Judge Dred (Fred)

Holy crap! The seller made the wrong move there. The buyer made the Wright move there!

$$$$ ch-ch-ching!!!

Wow!!!, that thing is 5 digits worth... I hope the seller got at least 4 digits worth.

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Posted By: Todd Schultz

Whoever scored that will be bragging about it for years, by George.

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Posted By: barrysloate

Does anyone know how long this was up for? What a stupid thing to pull it, much less not do a little bit of research on it. There are so many images of George Wright to compare it to.

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Posted By: ramram

I was chasing that one as well. I'm sure whoever made the off auction purchase is just sitting with his fingers and toes crossed hoping that they can weather the storm. I'll bet the seller is getting plenty of follow-up emails from potential buyers.

Rob M.

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Posted By: Daniel Bretta

It was up for 2 days Barry.

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Posted By: barrysloate

Thanks- I don't always check what's out there, but two days seems like a long time. It should have been snatched in the first hour or just stayed for the full week. Strange course of events. As someone said in a related post, maybe it is a good idea to bid early just to let the seller know he shouldn't pull it. Why are sellers so impatient? Wouldn't it be worth taking your chances and just seeing what it would go for? It's just a few more days.

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Posted By: barrysloate

As I think about it maybe the best strategy when one sees a lot like this is to immediately place a bid around 40-60% of its estimated retail value. You can't lose at that level, there is plenty of time to come back if you are interested, and it keeps sellers from closing these auctions early. I know nobody likes to tip their hand the first day, but it might actually improve one's chances of winning. If the auction closes early, your chances are zero. In any other scenario, they are at least better than zero.

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Posted By: ramram

Only problem is that you would need at least two bidders to make a bid of 40 - 60% for it to show.

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Posted By: barrysloate

I realize that but I just checked the bid history and the four bidders combined only got it to $275, so nobody was doing anything more than bookmarking it. I feel the same way- I don't like to bid until the last half minute- but in this case there was no last half minute. It was taken away.

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Posted By: jay behrens

The big reason a lot of people don't leave like to leave a bookmark bid is that there are many people who track the bidding of other collectors. By placing a bookmark bid, you are letting others know what you have placed a bid on. The easiest solution to this is creating a second account just for this purpose and don't tell anyone else about your second account. There is no cost set up a second account for buying. If I was an active buyer, I know I would be doing this.

Jay

Growing old is not optional, growing up is.

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Posted By: barrysloate

That makes sense. Nobody wants to show their hand early, but all these auctions closing without warning just aren't right. I know ebay does not care at all about this but it is becoming epidemic and there are several threads running now about the Wright cabinet and the E98's and collectors are getting frustrated. I still don't understand why sellers aren't even curious to let the auction run its course and see how their lot does. Don't they realize that nearly all early offers are made because the buyer is afraid the lot will go for a lot more money than his offer?

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Posted By: Bob

Well said Barry. A great example is the M116 Sporting Life Wood just concluded on ebay. With back problems and an exish front (at best) who would have thunk it would go for $2400+, especially when a better one sold (albeit it from a 0 feedback guy) for $999, less than a month ago on ebay. The seller was wise to let this one run to completion and more than doubled what would have been a legit offer to end the auction early...

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Posted By: davidcycleback

It is my firm belief that snipe bidding leads to auctions being ended early. If a seller sees little bidding on a lot and has experienced snipe bidding supressing final prices, he is more likely to end an auction early when someone give a healthy bid. If the auction has healthy bidding, he is less likely to end the auction early.

Collectors have discovered a technique to, as they themselves describe it, suppress bidding, keep other bidders away and get the auction lot to sell for as low as possible. And these collectors are surprised and dismayed to discover that sellers would try to counteract this technique?

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Posted By: Greg

Could it possibly be that the card wasn't sold, but instead the seller was told what he had and advised to consign it to an auction house?

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Posted By: davidcycleback

That is possible.

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Posted By: Jimmy Leiderman

For what its worth, the seller told me he was going to let the auction run its course about two hours after the cabinet card was listed.
Well... Guess we'll be seeing Mr. George Wright in the near future in a Mastro or REA auction.

What a beautiful and important piece of baseball imagery.

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Posted By: martindl

In this case it doesn't appear that the seller knew what they had, but as seller on Ebay i've lost out twice by letting an auction run, albeit on non cards.

In both instances I knew what i had and knew the relative value. I received a buy-it-now request for $350 within an hour of putting a listing for a record up. Market value for the record was about $300. I was tempted but let the auction run. It sold for $122, and not to the person offering the BIN. Same thing with an old colorized-photo. Value was about $200. I had multiple offers, the highest being $175 and it sold for a hair over $100. I made money on both, but left money on the table.

I do understand why sellers will take the money and run. Its got to be especially difficult if they're offered a large sum on something they think has modest value. Course, if that happened to me, i'd likely pull it and start researching like crazy.

May thats what happened here.

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Posted By: warshawlaw

a friend recently pulled a dozen or so auctions in their last 12 hours because he hadn't seen any bidding action. So, yes, sniping probably does scare some sellers into pulling an item. It did in my friend's case.

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Posted By: jay behrens

sniping is overrated. Yes, it's a fairly common occurance, but I been buying ans selling on eBay for 10 years and there isn't that much sniping going on relative to the number auctions being offered, even in the vintage baseball card section. I rarely have ever had an item get more than one bid at close. Same goes for items that I bid on. There is rarely ever another bid placed in the last few minutes of an auction that I am interested in.

As others have pointed out, not taking paypal only costs you money on big ticket items. It's not going to cost much, if anything if you don't take it on a $50 card.

Jay

Growing old is not optional, growing up is.

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Posted By: warshawlaw

Not worth a snipe J/K

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Posted By: David Vargha

My experience is exactly the opposite of Jay's. As a seller, many of my auctions double or triple in the last minute. Now granted, there are some that close at the standing bid with one day to go, but that is the exception rather than the rule.

As a bidder, I only wish that sniping played little or no part. Many times I have placed snipes that increased bids by hundreds of dollars compared to the high bid with 30 seconds left only to get creamed by other snipers, not even have my snipe register (for being too low) or win the lot at a substantially higher price than what was showing (primarily due to other snipes).

DavidVargha@hotmail.com

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Posted By: Richard Masson

Ditto. Snipes are prevalent in auctions for tougher items.
It seems like every time I put in a fair price bid early, I end up losing by one increment.

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Posted By: Jeff O

The thing that really bothers me here, and something that rarely gets brought up in these situations, is the outright fraud on the part of the buyer in avoiding eBay fees. Whenever I bring this topic up on this or other boards, one or two posters will invariably write some crap about how it's my item, eBay's fees are too high, etc.

Basically this buyer used eBay as free advertising for his item. eBay now gets screwed out of their final value fees, which they are entitled to under their contract with the buyer. Sure, the guy could make up some reason to pull the item down that is considered "acceptable", but in almost every case its a lie. The seller is simply avoiding fulfilling his part of his contractual agreement. If you don't want to pay eBay their fees, don't use their service.

Since I've been on eBay I've only sold to an emailer once... and in that case we agreed on a price and I added a BIN in that amount to my listing (I didn't have any bids yet). He got it for our agreed price, and eBay got their fees.

Jeff

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Posted By: Jeff P

You're right, Sellers definitely end their auctions to avoid ebay fees. Ebay had a net income of over $1 billion last year, so I doubt that too many people will feel all that guilty for skipping out on the occasional fee.

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Posted By: jay behrens

I never said sniping doesn't exist. Sniping is very prevelant on tough and desriable items, but this does not describe the vast majority of cards or other items on eBay. Most of these are hum-drum run of the mill items that rarely have more than one sniper. The vast majority of cards I chase and resell are of the mundane variety and these cards rarely get lots of action at the close. Then again, there is the occasional Hofnlan

Jay

Growing old is not optional, growing up is.

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Posted By: Paul

Does anyone have an idea what the George Wright cabinet would sell for in a well publicized auction? I know no one can predict it with much precision, but how many digits would the final selling price have?

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Posted By: jay behrens

5 digits, at least.

Jay

Growing old is not optional, growing up is.

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Posted By: barrysloate

10K-12K would seem like a reasonable estimate. It does have a surface scrape on the front, however.