Can someone explain the logic behind this eBay sale?
 

As we all know, sometimes things happen on eBay that defy all logic. Maybe someone can explain how this scenario happens.
I saw this item on ebay several weeks ago.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/27538960148...p2047675.l2557

I really debated about whether to bid as I thought it was super cool item with awesome provenance (I love stuff like this) but ultimately decided not to bid. So one person put in a bid and won.

Within days, one of the stubs from this journal page shows up on eBay. Obviously the buyer purchased the journal page with the intention to remove the tickets and sell individually. I thought to myself…”I’m not sure he’s gonna make his money back but we’ll see.” I watched the auction and thought I might bid a few hundred bucks at the end. With less than a minute to go it was around $200 so I thought I might win it at $300-$400.

Well as you can see, it went from $200 to $2200 in the final minute.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/125470615514

This is not the part that floors me. I’ve seen this happen plenty of times. The part I don’t understand is that there were 8 bidders in that final minute who drove the price up to $2200. Where were these 8 bidders a couple weeks before on the original piece? Any of those 8 bidders could have had THE COMPLETE PIECE WITH 2 STUBS for a fraction of the price. Needless to say, I felt foolish for not bidding the first time around.

Like I said, sometimes eBay leaves me shaking my head!


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Looks like both tickets showed up.

Sorry I corrected the second link

It's all about timing...and yes....you should have bid on the original piece.

There's other stuff I collect that I've flat missed out on because the words that I was searching with didn't exactly match how a desirable item was described.

I imagine there are way more folks looking for Babe Ruth items than 1916 World Series items.

A couple of things that original ebay lister did incorrectly:

(1) "Wrong" ebay category of:

Collectibles ->Collectible Postcards & Supplies -> Collectible Non-Topographical Postcards

rather than the new category of:

Sports Memorabilia, Fan Shop & Sports Cards -> Vintage Sports Memorabilia -> Vintage Sports Ticket Stubs

(2) Original lister also did not include Babe Ruth in the ebay listing

Finally, the new lister had a much better listing description than the original. These changes can easily explain the ending price differences.

Did you read the research the 2nd seller did?

It went from an album page with two Game #5 stubs to correctly identified as a three-game pass stub which of course includes Ruth's historic game #2.

That's by far the main reason for the jump in value in my opinion.

The second listing put Babe Ruth in the title. More eyeballs. Simple as that.



Last year, I missed out on an album of cards for about $230 that was just called 'trading cards.' It had some 1940s sports and non-sports in there. I was watching it, but wasn't around when the auction ended.

The buyer clearly only wanted the non-sports cards, because a few months later, they went for sale again from the original owner... but, just the sports cards this time.

One star card was sold solo and the others as a group. All were labeled better, and went for $900 total. (I didn't buy them.)


I was mad at myself for that one.


Bottom line, search engines need to be able to find the cards.

I can also say that in just the last few weeks, I have missed my chance to bid on an item I wanted because I had the tab open, I was watching the item, and with a few minutes left, I got distracted and didn't have a chance to bid.

For example, I had this item open yesterday, ready to bid $200 with 3 seconds left, got a phone call, and by the time I clicked back onto the tab, the bidding had ended. Big time sad.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/204074001665

as with everything in life, timing is (mostly) everything

You've got to use http://gixen.com

I've missed out on a few things myself. Keyword searches are an art form. When I was working on my orbit gum pin run, I played around with all kinds of variations on Saved Searches in Ebay.

Let's say I wanted Gabby Hartnett's pin. Many sources online show the pins as 1932-1934 Orbit Gum. There is of course the numbered PR2 versions, some of which are skip numbered and the unnumbered PR3. Gabby is only in the PR3 set. Here are some of the various keyword combinations I used:

1932 Orbit Gum PR3 Hartnett
1932-1934 Orbit Gum PR3 Hartnett
Orbit PR3 Harnett
Orbit Hartnett (This tended to include the Tatoo Orbit cards)
Orbit Gum Hartnett
Hartnett pin (Lots of extraneous hits)

I may have even used Hartnet with 1 T, can't remember now. The day it finally hit, I had 2-3 emails from Ebay that morning. When I saw the Inbox I knew it was listed and jumped in.

Bottom line, you have no control over how people will list it. I constantly find errors in listings for cards, wrong years, etc. If it's really something you're looking for, play around with the search terms.