Reasonable BIN w/BO Quagmire

[mintacular]

I was wondering if this occasion happens to you whereby there is a card you want listed at a decent BIN price with a best offer...You then make an offer and you get the dreaded you'll hear back with a response from seller in 48 hours....So you have to decide whether to bite the bullet and just hit the BIN or linger for a while hoping your lower offer is accepted. Always a tough call especially if you think a similar person might come along and swoop up said card. Anyone else experience angst with this scenario?

[Shoeless Moe]

Yep, did it with a 1919 World Series Ticket Stub, was listed for BIN for 1300, and I would easily have done 1300, and already saw 2 offers pending. What to do. Everything pointed to BIN and just end it. But u always want to feel like u got a deal so I took a chance & I offered 1170 and the seller accepted. I think I got lucky in that the 2 other offers must have been well below my 1170, but it had only been up 1 day.

My story ended well, but if someone would have swooped in, I would still be kicking myself. And that would have been 10 times worse then saving a 100 bucks or so, as I've not seen one come up below 1800 on ebay or any auction house for the last 2 years.

Tough call, good luck!

[ls7plus]

Hi, Patrick. I think it depends on how tough the card is (are there others likely to surface several/numerous times per year?), how badly you want it, how well it fits into your collecting niche, and how long you've been looking for an example without success.

I passed on a raw '56 Kahn's Frank Robinson (true rookie) about 12 years ago that was being offered by Fritsch as being in excellent condition, but with back damage for $375. This was a very tough card, but at that time I really did not realize how seldom it would be offered by itself in an auction--I saw perhaps 2 or three as parts of much larger lots in the ensuing years, but no opportunity to buy the single card until last year, when a saved e-bay search popped an example up. Ironically, I have the wierd feeling that it was the very same card, as it presents as Ex+, but with back damage, probably due to having been glued into a scrapbook and removed without sufficient care. According to the seller, whom I believe is part of this board, he received 10-12 calls on the card after I arranged to purchase it.

Bottom line, tough card having been sought for long period of time without success with potentially a lot of other interest, JUMP ON IT! If you pay a little too much, time will probably make you whole as to value and then some, whereas if you're bent on getting a bargain, with a rare card, it may take quite awhile before you're able to procure one!

Best always,

Larry

[53Browns]

I actually love it when the seller sets up the auction to immediately accept/reject offers "real time". So you don't have the dreaded wait.

[Exhibitman]

That is the best circumstance, Bill. When I sell w/BIN-BO I set a floor below which all offers are rejected, a range at which I want to be contacted, and an automatic acceptance level at or above which the offer will be accepted instantly. IMO the BIN-BO tool is one of the few really useful things Ebay has come up with.

As for the original issue, I agree w/Larry that it depends. I'm usually going to try and shave a % off the price when there is a BIN-BO but I've also jumped on specific items at the BIN when I know they are very difficult to find and I am afraid they will sell and I never look back when that happens w/any price regrets. A very wise collector [well, Leon, anyway ] once told me that for a rare card it isn't worth sweating over a hundred bucks. This Israeli Cassius Clay card is rare and had a BIN that was probably reasonable but I was nervous as to whether it would ever get here (my luck w/foreign sellers has been crappy) so I offered 25% on it instead:



This thing, on the other hand, just as rare, offered by a domestic seller had a very reasonable BIN and I didn't bother with the offer since I knew what it was and how hard they are to find (nearly impossible, actually, as it is a proof sheet and ESCo typically saved only a set or two of proof sheets in its art file for each issue):

[novakjr]

I've had that happen at least three times. Two times were with complete sets, and the other was with a DVD Boxed set. Ebay let's you know whether there are other offers or not, two times I bit the bullet and just hit the BIN. The other time with a set, I knew I had a really lowball offer and there were 3 other offers, but I didn't like the BIN price, so I just wrote it off as a loss, 2 days later I won the set... That came as a nice surprise.

[sportscardpete]

My philosophy is if you want it and it's at a reasonable price, buy it. There was one time the seller and I were about $50 dollars apart and the deal didn't go through. Looking back I would have been more than happy to just buy it outright and enjoy the card. If it's a card you can live without than it might be worth the risk. But not for something you really want to buy. There are a lot of people on ebay and who knows, they might come in with a better offer. Stranger things have happened! Good luck with it though.