Matty Portrait SGC 5 for $4k+

[boneheadandrube]

Originally Posted by Aquarian Sports Cards

My comment was more in general, but was irresponsible since it was made in a thread about a specific item.

That being said the two bidders with the most individual bids on the Matty have 52% and 72% of all of their bids with PWCC. Coupled with the fact that these two bidders inched the price up in tandem does cause one (me anyway) concern.

However this is not a knock on Brent, as I am currently pondering how to prevent this kind of thing in my own online auction

I'm not trying to defend every bidding situation we see on PWCC here, but what you're describing there as tandem bidding is what happens in an auction as a bidding war no? I will sometimes place multiple bids at the end of an auction if it turns out my snipe was set too low, it can be a matter of impulse. I think some folks have that same impulse for the duration of the auction. Its not smart as it can lead to being bid up but I'm sure you've met competitive people who might enjoy doing the back and forth on an item especially if its below market price. Add a hot item into that equation and I'm sure you will find two bidders duking it out in an auction. Why would you want to prevent that in your own online auctions? I don't think that potential consignors with you will find that appealing. Not everyone has the same bidding habits that you might think are normal/traditional.

Whenever an ebay seller has 200-400 T206's listed in an auction on ebay my bidding percentage with them usually ends up above 75% for the duration of the auction as I collect T206. With the amount of advertising PWCC does I'll bet there are more than a few who don't bid on ebay unless its with PWCC, this would raise their percentage.. There are also not that many good cards auctioned as compared to lsited with a high set price, so bidding my be narrowed down to a certain seller when they have a large offering.

If you think about these things objectively you can see reasons for things that might otherwise be red flags. I don't see the price of Matty as crazy either, it went $500 higher than the last one... Just my 2c.