Anyone who wakes up at 330 AM to bid on a baseball card should reassess his life, in my opinion. :D

Just place a max bid, what's the WORST that can happen, you get the card for what you were willing to pay.

Agreed, but you know the level of obsession out there. It's about getting the stuff.

How about this idea: Extend the auctions to around 8 am EST, then all the east guys can wake up fresh in the morning and add more final bids, and the west guys can stay up til 5 am PST if they want to, or put in their max bids earlier and go to sleep.

The only problem with that is instead of making the auctions shorter, you're making them a lot longer. But getting a good night's sleep and waking up early to bid is, IMO, an excellent strategy.

Most are too late for me most of the time! good post and discussion

Jimmy

It seems like a lot of people are proposing obscure solutions for the bidder to make the inconvenient auction endings more doable. Yes, there are solutions, but wouldn't be easier to just solve the problem?

Baseball card auctions have turned into silent auctions. We write down a bid and leave for hours (or days) and someone comes and writes a higher bid down. Now imagine the silent auction stayed open until 3AM and only one person was left in the auction house picking and choosing the best deals of the lot. It's a disservice to the consignor, the other bidders and the auction house.

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change...

I have been reading all of these convoluted solutions and have been shaking my head. They are good solutions but would never, ever work with our audience. I could point to a fire exit, marked as a fire exit, and some people wouldn't understand what kind of exit it is. You absolutely HAVE to use the Keep it Simple method with large audiences (as auctions have).