I am still not too sure how Mastro bidding system works

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Posted By: Scott Bob 

I think I am still not too sure how Mastro bidding system works. I don't understand how can this auction goes to $36k with only one bid on it.

http://mastronet.com/index.cfm?action=DisplayContent&ContentName=Lot%20Information&LotIndex=39036

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Posted By: bcornell

You can place an "absolute" bid on Mastro at a specific amount. I think we're all so used to proxy (i.e., one bid increment higher) bids that this looks weird.

Either this guy made a serious goof when he entered his bid or he is trying to scare off all other bidders. Knowing nothing about basketball cards or unopened packs, I'd still bet on the former.

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Posted By: Marc S.

Putting in a large bid from the beginning not only scares off other bidders, but it also potentially limits the number of people with whom you will be competing in the after-hour bidding wards of the 10-minute rule. The 1957/58 Topps set is very valuable in top grade with solid NM/MT examples few and far between. Additionally, as packs, there are exceptionally rare. I would say the bidder on this lot was being strategic. If memory serves correctly, this bidder made an effort to place that specific bid within 5-10 minutes of the auction's open.

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Posted By: Aaron M.

The same thing happened on the 1948 Bowman basketball wax pack. Likely the same guy placed an immediate bid shooting it up past $7,000 from it's $1,500 minimum. All three of the major vintage unopened basketball lots have had the same pattern.

Either, yes, it is a strategic bid from an interested bidder (I've followed Jeff Mullen's vintage basketball website in the past and there are indeed a few advanced collectors who are willing to pay enormous premiums to get rare items) or one of the consignor's buddies are trying to circumvent Mastro's policy of low minimum bids by creating a higher reserve.

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Posted By: The Other One

.......

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Posted By: andy becker

even if it is a form of schill bidding, 15% is pretty steep to chance (assuming the seller got the 15% selling fee completely waived). i think it's strategic bidding. my .02

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Posted By: JimB

The bus came by and I got on....
Julie, was this a cryptic message?

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Posted By: leon

and it works well, imo........

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Posted By: The Other One

(at least--i think so), and--I sort of took to it. There's a great Greatful Dead Instrumetal called "That's It for The Other One," which I'm told means "that's the end of the old way we made music; now we're going to make our own music."

Once you type a name into the yellow rectangle space reserved for your name, it keeps saying that until you change it. I liked the way it looked. Still sign in julievognar. "Call me Dummy."

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Posted By: JimB

I thought perhaps it was a cryptic way of identifying as a Deadhead to like-minded folks. It is a great song.
Jim

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Posted By: The Other One

card sets put all over a t-shirt--and NOBODY (on the street, or among friends here, or in Davesdougout, or at the Asian Art Museum, or at the movies) has recognized them yet. Many people ask, but nobody says--oh, I see you collect Old Judges, or Tobin Lithographs! The answer is simple: they don't!

I forgot that The Greatful Dead was about 90 years newer...



"and some walk in darkness and others walk in light, and we see those in the light but those in darkkness, we don't see."
--Bert Brecht, "Mack the Knife," The Threepenny Opera

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Posted By: warshawlaw

Put in the maximum number you want to pay for a card and assume you will end up paying it.

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Posted By: The Other One

You KNOW someone will step over that line!

Do it the old fashioned way: enter a bid on the thing or things you want, as soon as you deciude you want them. Nurse them all night the night auction closes. NEVER assume your best-loved thing is going nowhere and bid too much on something else and get caught short. NEVER enter a sky-high bid hoping to discourge someone else! There's (almost) always someone with more dough to throw around than you. Bid as infrequently as you can-- stand. There's no "snipe," because the auction is theoretically, and sometimes actually endless..but there is something to be said for bidding determinedly when the white man is sleepy.

Earlier entrants in this thread have shown that if you bid high ENOUGH, like 50K for an old pack of cards, you may have a different system to work with. You also have more money than almost anyone.

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Posted By: bcornell

Has anyone ever won a Mastro lot at less than their max bid? I certainly haven't and never expect to.

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Posted By: Max Weder

I would only add that I have now been outbid on all seven of my hidden ceiling bids. I will now be able to enjoy the rest of the auction in peace, without bidding again, but hopefully having insured that I will again continue to receive the next catalogue as a result.

Max

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

I am just like you ... except that I am somehow still LEADING one of the 15 auctions that I bid on!

If someone will PLEASE just go bid on the SGC graded SHOELESS JOE rookie card ... then you will do me a BIG FAVOR!! I will owe you one.

Actually, I will owe you eight thousand.

Thanks from the bottom of my heart.

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Posted By: The Other One

The Mayo Wilbert Robinson SGC 50 comes to mind. Less than 2K with the 15%.Not less than I was ADVISED to pay, but I was good for a couple more bids. Also, I guess the Walker team photo--I had no IDEA what it would go for. Sure was relieved when I saw the ratty mount(which he hid in the catalogue). But still--nothing would have surprised me. Except if I'd stopped bidding on it. Less than 3.5K.

But that was when I was rich...

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Posted By: Max

Hal

While I would never ask you to lead me on, I am glad that you aren't high bidder on any of the book lots (anyone have a spare Thuoey around for cheap?)and you're spending it on cards.

I will thus take this opportunity to pass on your Shoeless Joe, but thank you for the kind invitation.

Max

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

Doesn't mean I don't intend to bid AGAIN on the signed Cobb book...



JULIE: I know you may have purchased a Mastro item for less than you thought you would have to pay...

but did you use the "AUTOMATIC BID" feature???

His complaint is that if you tell Mastro: "I will pay UP TO $5,000 for a particular item" ... then it just seems like you always end up winning the item for $5,000.

Maybe just coincidence ... but I quit using the "AUTO BID" feature. Just seems too easy for someone at Mastro to find out my max and shil.

NOT SAYING THAT THEY DO ... but I just don't want to tempt them.

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Posted By: Max

Hal

Ty's book is all years. I only buy books signed by Ty in purple ink, not that way too available green or even that sissy colored blue ink in the Mastro auction...

Max

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Posted By: The Other One

I have NEVER used the "automatic bid feature" in any auction. I don't even know what it is: if it's graduated, it's ridiculous--it just inflates the bidding. If it's an end-of-auction bid, and you always seem to have to pay it--STOP DOING IT! I don't think anyone has ever accused Bill Mastro of being Mother Teresa, Abraham Lincoln or Mahatma Ghandi. If it's broke, fix it.

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Posted By: Albie O'Hanian

I won one item for a lot less than the maximum bid I registered. I put in the bid early in the final evening, and went to bed figuring that I probably lost the item, but even if I won I would have to pay my max. I was pretty surprised and happy in the morning.

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Posted By: Peter Thomas

Since I live on the East coast and have a 3 hour handicap with those on the West coast and Mastro now ends half of its auction on Thursday, so they have have Sunday to recover, I have used the auto bid on Thursday items and have won several at less than my max bid. Julie, since I saw Bill at the National two weeks ago, I can confirm that he is bigger than Mother Teresa, smaller than Abe, but is currently sporting a hair style somewhat similar to Mahatma that looks good on him.

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Posted By: The other One

Seriously, someone was complaining that his "automatic bids" were always necessary, up to the last penny. However lovable Bill Mastro may be (I haven't spoken to him for 20 years), "I dare say, I THINK he's honest..."

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Posted By: Max

My last questionable experience in an auction left me predictably without a win. A hockey lot (Jeff O would be proud) sold in the one of the last Mastro auctions for $1400 (1600 or so with buyer's premium). I was somewhat surprised to see it surface again only 4 months later in a lesser known auction house (which shall remain nameless, but whose initials are Canadian whiskey). The opening bid was $500 with one bidder. I bid $550 before the cutoff time. We thus were the only bidders eligible to bid. By midnight, no action. However, before I went to bid, I phoned my friend and bet I would be outbid. Unfortunately, I couldn't convince him to cover, no matter what the odds were. Not surprisingly, I awoke having been outbid.

Why would someone list this so soon after paying big bucks in Mastro, with an opening bid at 1/3? Shrill shill thrill, I suspect. Only I didn't bite and raise my bid, and I suspect the item remains in the hands of the original owner. Their new auction listings go straight to the garbage, as I'd rather play hockey than bid in their auctions.

Max

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Posted By: tbob

As one who has been very unsuccessful in bidding in Mastro auctions, I might have to rethink my bidding strategies. I try to get the lead as often as possible to drive other bidders away, but I guess all I am doing is running the price up, up and away. Maybe I should bid once early and then come in late and skip the middle biddings. Any thoughts? Ooops, just lost my lead on the E98 lot. GRRRRRRR.

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Posted By: Anonymous

"I try to get the lead as often as possible to drive other bidders away, but I guess all I am doing is running the price up, up and away."

Yep. All you are doing is giving other bidders who are interested in the item time to adjust their expectations of the item's worth and then bid accordingly. There's simply no more sense in bidding repeatedly on a Mastro lot as there would be on E-Bay.

"Maybe I should bid once early and then come in late and skip the middle biddings."

Isn't that how everyone bids on these types of auctions?

You bid very early on (within the first day or two when current bids are still ridiculously low so it doesn't matter if you win them all and have to pay up) on all items you have even the slightest interest in. This is your marker bid so that you are eligible to bid during "extended time." You wait a few hours and then you make your "real" bids on items you are definitely interested in winning for whose prices are still within your budget and/or level of willingness to pay.

I've only lost one item on Matsro that I "really" wanted using this system (a guy had used a similar tactic and we just kept outbidding eachother every half hour or so well into the AM, until I finally decided I'd reached my limit in terms of the item's price--a decision I continue to regret to this day!).

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Posted By: The Other One

Ideally, you should only have to bid twice: once to get a bid in, and once to win the item--right before the auction closes (of course, when IS that? Do Mastro auctions ever end, or are the early ones still really going?).

But "trying to stay ahead of the competition" is ridiculous! WHO CARES who finishes #1, 3 days before the auction closes? The only bids that count are the pre-first-bid-closing-bid, and--the winning bid.

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Posted By: JimB

I have won lots on a couple of different occasions at lower that my max bid in Mastro Auctions. My hunch is that they are honest about this. THey have way too much to lose by not being honest. Greed could of course take over, but...
Jim