Negro League Postcard on E-Bay

[ElCabron]

It could be as early as 1922. I would guess it's either 1922 or 1923. Amazing piece. Interesting bid history on this one. Looks like the underbidder has had 92 bid retractions just in the past 6 months. Were you the underbidder, Phil?

-Ryan

[bcbgcbrcb]

Yup, I think I mentioned that in my first post, Ryan, that there were only two bidders above $1,500 and I bid $4,000 and did not win it.

Your objective is obviously to point out past bid retractions which have no impact on this discussion, unless a Net 54 member was the seller and, even if so, I did not retract my bid on this item so it has no bearing on the subject.

[mannybb24]

I had the $1500 bid

[Exhibitman]

92 bid retractions? I didn't think you could do that.

[Jaybird]

Originally Posted by bcbgcbrcb

Yup, I think I mentioned that in my first post, Ryan, that there were only two bidders above $1,500 and I bid $4,000 and did not win it.

Your objective is obviously to point out past bid retractions which have no impact on this discussion, unless a Net 54 member was the seller and, even if so, I did not retract my bid on this item so it has no bearing on the subject.

Is it a bidding strategy?

[bcbgcbrcb]

C'mon guys, I can't divulge all of my secrets, then everyone would do it..........

[D. Bergin]

Originally Posted by bcbgcbrcb

C'mon guys, I can't divulge all of my secrets, then everyone would do it..........

Seems like everyone already does do it, and it makes me a little sick to be honest.

I thought this thread and this item was fascinating, but I'll admit this revelation kind of surprised me. I always assumed some of these serial retractors were on this board, but obviously kept it to themselves.

If you are not shilling auctions, and I doubt you are, you are actively interfering with auctions. Just because Ebay now allows it to happen with zero repercussions, doesn't make it right.

[celoknob]

Originally Posted by bcbgcbrcb

C'mon guys, I can't divulge all of my secrets, then everyone would do it..........

I'm sure many here are clever enough to figure out "secrets" that would interfere with other people's auctions to our advantage but instead choose a different path. So, no, not everyone would do it.

Edited to add: wouldn't anyone question the valdidity of an auction result where the underbidder had 92 retractions?

[nsaddict]

For the sake of accuracy the retraction total is now 93!

[Leon]

Originally Posted by nsaddict

For the sake of accuracy the retraction total is now 93!

That makes me throw up a little bit in my mouth....

[Jaybird]

Originally Posted by nsaddict

For the sake of accuracy the retraction total is now 93!

Phil, I don't have one bid retraction since I've been on ebay (2002). I can't see a good reason for retracting your bid. Can you enlighten us? Otherwise it seems like you're effing with auctions for profit or for sport. And 93 mistakes in entering the price isn't remotely feasible.

[ElCabron]

Originally Posted by bcbgcbrcb

Yup, I think I mentioned that in my first post, Ryan, that there were only two bidders above $1,500 and I bid $4,000 and did not win it.

Your objective is obviously to point out past bid retractions which have no impact on this discussion, unless a Net 54 member was the seller and, even if so, I did not retract my bid on this item so it has no bearing on the subject.

Actually, my main objective was to offer some insight on the possible dating of this incredible item, since I'm somewhat familiar with the subject matter and players that have been identified (and misidentified). I did think the bid history was interesting, which I noticed right when the auction ended. I thought it was very strange that the next highest bid was $3,999.99. I thought it might have been a shill bid, so I looked at the bid history of the underbidder. $3,999.999 didn't seem like an amount someone would bid if they were trying to win an auction. More like they were trying set a reserve, or more accurately, shill. I didn't realize that was you at the time. Frankly, I'm surprised to find out about all your bid retractions, but I'm glad to hear that all the bids on this particular item were legit. It's certainly worth the amount it sold for, in my opinion.

-Ryan

[Bicem]

I must know this secret bid retraction and odd max bid strategy.

[ElCabron]

I'll try to dig up what i have as far as box scores for Dihigo on the Cuban Stars. The most obvious detail, while not exactly scientific, is just looking at Dihigo. He is very young in this image. I've been collecting his cards and photos for over 15 years. I've owned over 100 photos of Dihigo over the years and have a database of probably 400-500 total images of him, mostly from various magazines in Mexico, Cuba, etc. Unfortunately, it's much harder to find images and information about his playing days in the United States than it is for Cuba or Mexico. I would find it very hard to believe that this image is from later than 1924, maybe 1925 at the latest. But that seems like a stretch to me. My best guess would be 1923, but a range of 1922-1924 seems the most likely to me.

It's difficult to go by a lot of the info that is out there regarding rosters since there are numerous mistakes in some of the ones published in commonly used reference materials. I would like to see a close-up of the blurry player in the front row, which might help some, but there are only 3 or 4 players it looks like it could be (Portuondo, Teran, Cardenas, Fabelo) and none of them really help to pinpoint an exact year since they were all there for multiple years. I'd also like to see closer scans of the guy in the top left corner.

-Ryan