My name is Tbob and I am a Night Owl

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Posted By: Marc S.

<<I guess I am just surprised that more sellers who know the value of what they have do not use it to try to get the highest price out of the highest bidder. After all, the way ebay works, the seller is only getting a marginal increase over the SECOND highest bidder's bid. >>

BIN is a tough thing from a seller's perspective. I certainly use it - and there have been times that I have absolutely made money by using it. But I don't think it is always so clear.

A) If you have BIN, the BIN disappears after the first straight bid. Ebay is great for starting auctions low - but not so great [IMO] at starting auctions too high. Thus, often a card has a $10 or less opening bid, and the BIN disappears right away.

B) Same as above, but BIN stays if you have a reserve. History has shown that most bidders eschew Ebay reserve auctions.

C) There is always the fear of leaving money on the table. Especially with the run-up in so many pre-war sets lately, what would a proper BIN be? If the seller of the Zeenut Harry Rosenberg or Jimmy Reese cards put a BIN on their auction, they almost certainly would have lost hundreds of dollars. It's always hard to say for sure, of course, but I don't think many people were expecting Harry Rosenberg to go anything close to $1,250. There are dozens of such examples every week on Ebay....

~ms