ANALYSIS-MASTRO'S #1 1965 SET EBAY AUCTION

Basilone · April 18, 2003 4:33PM

Gentlemen-

Lets make this the OFFICIAL THREAD for conversation regarding results of the landmark eBay auction of Mastro's All-Time Finest 1965 set. This auction is historical from the set registry perspective for a couple of reasons. The Mastronet set is the first (I believe) #1 All-Time Finest Registry set to ever be broken up...especially for a standard full-size Topps set.

Some details on the MastroNet set:

#1 All-Time Finest 1965 Topps Baseball set known to existWeighted GPA of 8.65 with 100% completion All cards are graded 8NQ or higherThe Set includes 3 PSA 10s, 329 PSA 9s, and 265 PSA 8s (597 cards)The Set includes 22 POP 1 PSA 9s. 45 POP 2 PSA 9s, and 49 POP 3 PSA 9s.Note: card #398 (Reds Rookies PSA 8 common was pulled from the auction) All 597 auctions ending at the same exact timeThe total SMR of the Mastronet set is $63,203.00 (the 3 PSA 10 commons calculated at $325 per)
This should be fun to watch (and bid on)....

John Basilone
basilone@neo.rr.com

Stump · April 18, 2003 8:30PM

Well I am a bidder. I will only be hitting the 8's and only 40-50cards. Good luck to everyone who is bidding. John nice stats on the set it should be retired into some sort of PSA Wall of Fame.

Dave

Basilone · April 19, 2003 12:28AM

Well, Ive been up all night (thanks to coffee) and 2 hours of sleep (7-9am) tracking this auction, running and sorting spreadsheets, etc. etc.

This auction to me is like a game of no-limit Texas Hold'em to me...I've been constantly placing my "blind" or "call bets" on ebay thru the regular bid process. I've then been adjusting my "raise" or "all-in" bets with my sniping service. The thrill for me is trying to figure out where the value is in relation to POP, figuring what other people need, trying to read into bids or "bets" already placed, figuring who needs what and what price they are willing to pay...all this and wondering how the hell Im going to pay for all these auctions if I win!

With all 597 auctions ending at one time (with no call backs)....you really have to be on your toes and adjust bidding strategy on the fly. For exapmle, I have placed about $6k in bids through eBay and another $3k through my sniper service. My $6k is down to $1000.00 right now as I have been out bid. If my regular eBay bids go down to $500.00, then I need to make a decision...do I put the money back into those auctions or do I allocate the funds to my snipe bids.

The last spreadsheet I ran with 4hours and 15 minutes to go....total bids were $43,144.05.

John

Stump · April 19, 2003 12:39AM

Well I bid on 55 cards and now am high bidder on only 27. The market is strong.

Dave

Basilone · April 19, 2003 12:44AM

Dave,

I know what you mean...the out-bid emails are coming in as I write this!

John

thegemmintman · April 19, 2003 12:53AM

Great work Basilone. This is a cool thread

. Although I don't collect the '65's, it is my favorite large Topps set from the 1960's on.

Basilone · April 19, 2003 12:56AM

Thanks GemMint...another good aspect of the K and Giants sets....less cards to worry about.

I should be producing a new bid total amount around noon.

John

SportscardAdvocate · April 19, 2003 2:11AM

Nice work on the stats! I'd love to see a post mortem on what the set goes for. As somebody said, it should be interesting to see how things compare to the pop report. Is there anyway to download auction results? That way you could merge it with the pop report and run some stats to see how prices can/might be determined.

The analogy to poker is dead on...I love this stuff...

Basilone · April 19, 2003 2:28AM

Hey sportscard....Ive got a spreadsheet ready to go with POPs and SMR's for every card offered...just need to fill in the final bid amounts. I had to "hard-key" alot of the information I pasted from PSA online...so that I could do my sorting accurately.

I would offer the spreadsheet now...but information is key. If someone wants it.....it will feature the top low-pop PSA 8's and low pop PSA 9's and all the rest of the cards.

Spreadsheet is in excel format.... 1 hour and 30 minutes to go.

John

SportscardAdvocate · April 19, 2003 2:46AM

I'd pay money for it. I'm not interested in bidding so I can wait until it's done. Let me know if you're going to key in all the final bids.

Basilone · April 19, 2003 2:49AM

Im going to key in all the final bids...and will post if for free after the auction. Im an active bidder so I dont want to disclose too much info before then (unless someone will pay for it). You have to love Capitalism!

john

GATOR5 · April 19, 2003 2:50AM

John,

You've been emailed.

Matt

Skycap · April 19, 2003 2:55AM

I have my eye on just one card for a player set, but I'm still very interested in how the entire set goes in relation to the SMR. T minus one hour and all systems are go!

Skycap

Basilone · April 19, 2003 3:02AM

Well...my $6k in bids...is down to $160.00 in bids where Im winning. Time to adjust the snipes!!!!

John

Stump · April 19, 2003 3:22AM

John

The outbidding has slowed on my items still high on 25 of 55 with under 40 to go. Hanging on, decided not to snipe this time my high bid stands for a win or a loss.

Dave

goodriddance189 · April 19, 2003 3:50AM

T minus 10 minutes and counting.....

Basilone · April 19, 2003 3:57AM

Could you imagine the outrage if he pulls the auctions with 2 minutes left......LOL.

John

Wayne8348 · April 19, 2003 4:04AM

Well my auctionsniper program jammed I guess because of too many snipes so I missed out on placing about 75 bids.

Unbelievable!!!

Wayne

goodriddance189 · April 19, 2003 4:08AM

how much did the entire lot go for? anywhere near your 63k guess?

Vargha · April 19, 2003 4:09AM

It does seem rather silly of any seller of such a set to have all of the cards close at the same time. It's certainly not the best way to maximize $$$.

Cubfan · April 19, 2003 4:12AM

Luckily, my snipe worked and I got the all important Billy Williams 9

.

However, I wanted to do a quick check on some of the ending prices and saw that the prices shown in the search are not the final prices (as it listed mine at about 20% less on the list, but it was accurate when the detail was popped up).

How long do you have to wait before ebay updates their closing prices with the TRUE closing prices?

You might have to wait a little bit John to get the true picture.

Skycap · April 19, 2003 4:19AM

Cubfan: If you search by sandandy, past auctions, you can see all of the closing prices now.

Skycap · April 19, 2003 4:23AM

Oh, and I forgot to mention: I got the only card I was after, a VERY low Pop PSA 9 card for my player set. I bid manually with two seconds to spare!

Stump · April 19, 2003 4:23AM

Won 21 PSA 8's

Dave

Buckwheat · April 19, 2003 4:29AM

I suspect that the total will be under SMR, when it shouldn't have been. I believe he would have done better selling as a complete set on his auction, and even better still if he had spaced the auctions on Ebay. I suspect he lost big bucks on the snipes not going off.

John (Basilone), did your snipes go off??

pc · April 19, 2003 4:29AM

well i had snipes in on 6 cards and esnipe failed.
so it goes.congrats to the winners.i suspect many
cards would have sold for much more if the sniping
services had worked.

waitilltheytrytosell · April 19, 2003 4:37AM

Looks like - 60,430.12
Biggest hit to total probably came from the large number of the most common PSA 9's not reaching their $65 to $90 SMR prices.
Good across the board average though, all things considered.

thegemmintman · April 19, 2003 4:40AM

This is truly amazing. I wonder how much it cost them from all the snipes. Are we talking a couple of thousand dollars or much more than that?

Buckwheat · April 19, 2003 4:41AM

Waittil,

Almost all of my missed snipes (over 200 of them) were on PSA 9's. Certainly would have improved the total take!

Basilone · April 19, 2003 4:42AM

My head is still spinning...have to grab a smoke or something.

My snipe program didnt work on 2 of my snipes.

#21 Don Blasingame PSA 8...I had for a $54.00 snipe...it went for $30.55
#209 Pirates Team PSA 9 POP 1...I had for a $211.00 snipe...it went for $184.50.

I will post more info in a little bit.

John

Vargha · April 19, 2003 4:48AM

Lost revenue of just $5 per card because of failed snipes is $3K.

Skycap · April 19, 2003 5:02AM

I did a random check of cards that went for triple digits, and the low level of sniping is readily apparent: Very few had bids in the final minute. I don't collect the set (just one player as mentioned above), but many low pop cards appear to have been obtained at bargain prices. I would take a rough guess that if the aggregate total was indeed $60K as mentioned above, the sellers may have lost out on an additional $10-15K based on the failure/overloading of sniper software.

Note that the highest card, Mantle. PSA 9 SMR $4,000 went for only $2,852 to someone named bosoxbuyer (!) with 0 feedback who registered yesterday.

Some of the big boys went for considerably below SMR as well. Clemente PSA 9, with an SMR of $1,750, went for only $1,025. Aaron PSA 9, SMR also at $1,750, went for $1,375. Rose PSA 9, SMR $3,250, went for $2,608. Mays, PSA 9, SMR $2,300, was had for just $1,275. Koufax PSA 9, SMR $2,500, went for $1,775.

Skycap

qualitycards · April 19, 2003 5:03AM

Although some of the #'s reported were impressive, I Too agree they should have been spaced out, and in the auction title the team names should have been included. Many casual fans don't realize that Pedro Gonzlez, Pete Mikkelsen & Rollie Sheldon are Yankees. Plus the tough low pop 9's should have been mentioned, as many bidders were bidding the same # across the board for 9's and many would have bid higher knowing this was a 1 of 1 and that was a 1 of 2. ...jay

Vargha · April 19, 2003 5:04AM

Skycap is probably fairly accurate with the $10-15K lost estimate -- OUCH!!

GATOR5 · April 19, 2003 5:09AM

Hmmmm, not sure what to say that was the biggest
disaster in the selling history for years to come. The
auction that could have been it had all the makings.

John rallys the board members for the snipe of the
year. 300 lousy bucks for charlie that card I know
some people that just gnawed off their tongue.

The Duke is the winner!!!!!!!!!!!

Boy I'm sitting here in awe!!!

Skycap · April 19, 2003 5:12AM

Just think how much better they would have done if they had spaced the auction over, say, seven evenings, with a couple of minutes between each lot. In this scenario, the sellers would gain the advantage of both automatic e-sniping and manual sniping. Oh well, their loss is the collector's gain.

Skycap

toppsgun · April 19, 2003 5:25AM

I won 13 lots of the 50+ I was bidding on, but I only seriously bid on less than half that many. (Head fake, or rather a poker-face bluff, in the parlance of the thread.) I DID NOT use my sniping service as I predicted it would clog. Good decision there.

My winning bids were less than 70% of SMR for the 4 PSA 9's I won.
My winning bids were less than 75% of SMR for the 13 PSA 8's I won, most of which had pop's in the mid- to high-teens.

Wayne, I think you made out well, in spite of your sniping failures. I noticed a lot of 9's you won for prices in the mid-$40's.

Hopefully John B. will get a nap this afternoon and post a summary analysis and a list of the big winners. Good Job, man. I'm glad you won something for all your efforts.

Skycap · April 19, 2003 5:58AM

I am revising my previously mentioned estimate that the sellers may have lost out on an additional $10-15K based on the failure/overloading of sniper software. Based on (1) the comments from just a couple of collectors on the parallel 1965 thread (one alone estimated he would have increased the bidding by a total of $4K) and that (2) there were sufficiently masssive amounts of bidders to cause esnipe and perhaps other similar services to fail, I hereby revise the amount the sellers lost out to be more like $20K. I think whomever may have thought they'd save on labor by combining all 598 cards into simultaneously listed lots ended up costing them dearly in terms of dollars. Contratulations to all of my fellow PSA collectors who ended up with bargains.

Skycap

Wabittwax · April 19, 2003 6:02AM

I'm sure that esnipe realized that they lost money too by their problems and hopefully will upgrade their equipment to handle the volume in the future. I'm sure just from those auctions, esnipe has lost customers.

Basilone · April 19, 2003 6:31AM

Gentlemen,

Okay...the results are in.....total bids were $60,430.12. The total SMR for the set was $63,203.00, resulting in bids totaling 97.19% of SMR before any fees (ebay, shipping, credit card?, etc.).

I personally used the website justsnipe.com and it froze on 2 auctions which I may or may not have won....#21 Blasingame PSA 8 and #209 Pirates Team PSA 9 POP 1 (see earlier post for details of my missed bids).

Out of nearly $8k in bids through both ebay and my sniper service...I only ended up winning 6 lots.

Here are my winnings:

#25 Al McBean PSA 9 POP 1 $110.50 - I had a snipe in of $221 for this card as backup and was very pleased at this price!! Not only is it a POP 1 PSA 9, BUT there are only 7 PSA 8 copies, which make it the 2nd lowest pop card to find in PSA 8 as well. Plus hes a Pirate...my favorite team. This lot was a steal from a set registry perspective.

#65 Tony Kubek PSA 9 POP 1 $160.50 - Again, I had a backup snipe of $241 on this card and was thrilled to get it at this price. Out of all of the POP 1 PSA 9s...this card was the only Yankee and had the best name recognition/hobby following of the group. This card sells for mulitples of SMR in its PSA 8 grade. Another steal in my opinion.

#127 Frank Lary PSA 8 POP 9 $31.00 - This card is tied for the 3rd lowest population in PSA 8 with a POP of 9 with none graded higher.

#164 Al Spangler PSA 8 POP 9 $31.00 - Also, this is tied for the 3rd lowest POP in PSA 8 with a POP of 9.

#195 Bob Veale PSA 9 POP 6 $62.50- I had a feeling that I would win this one as I bid around SMR, but I am a Bob Veale and Pirates fan. POP 6 isnt that bad either.

#463 Manny Mota PSA 9 POP 5 $41.00- A POP 5 PSA 9 Pirate at 50% of book......Im all over that.

So those are my results after staying up for all hours tracking this thing. I came in 2nd place on ALOT of the auctions including the Oliva PSA 9 POP 2....but I felt I could not overtake the Duke. Congrats to the Duke as well on the Charlie Smith....he is now complete in 8 or higher (that was the last card he needed).

I tried to upload the spreadsheet through the forum but it exceded the memory limitations...so I had to save it as a html page. For those intersted in sorting the numbers and would like the spreadsheet in excel format...please email me at basilone@neo.rr.com and I will forward you a copy.

Here is the webpage to view all of the stats: RESULTS OF MASTRO'S 1965 SET EBAY AUCTION

I would like to hear everyone's story regarding lots they won or lost!

Hobby Regards (as they say),

John Basilone

Wayne8348 · April 19, 2003 6:40AM

Thanks John - that's an awesome report! You did well with your bids also. I picked up 12 psa 9's at an average of $42 per card. I'm happy with that but I had snipes in on all of the large dollar cards such as all of the league leader cards and the perez rookie. The perez sold for $150 less than my snipe amount and several of the leader cards sold well under my snipes. I'm very happy with the cards I picked up though.

Wayne

Cubfan · April 19, 2003 7:01AM

For the record, I used auction stealer this time and it came through. But I did only have 1 snipe.

That is really amazing to see how far under SMR (for what its worth) some of the stars went. There was also at least 1 PSA 10 that went less than the card I purchased.

This has shown there are exceptions to the sniping theories.

I cant imagine anyone ever doing this with their auction in the future.

Also, great job John. Thanks for the hard work.

Buckwheat · April 19, 2003 8:13AM

Great job John, and thanks for all of the hard work.

I put snipes in for 251 cards, about 85% PSA 9's and bid on 15 low value 8's directly. I didn't bid on any of the high dollar cards, except for the PSA 10's, which all went for less than my snipes.

40 snipes went through, of which I won only three. The way it looks, I suppose that the snipe service has to confirm the bid also, and that seems to be where the trouble started. I would have expected to have won a higher percentage, so I think that on cards that the bid was already higher than my snipe, if often recorded bid too low, whereas if the bid was under my snipe, the bid was less likely to be completed.

Of the 211 that did not go through, my snipe was higher than the final bid on 156, by a total of $1,717. This is nowhere near the 4K to 6K I previously estimated, as I initially was not using the final prices. It seems that there was a lot of bidding in the last two hours. As I mentioned, I did not bid on any of the high dollar or really popular cards. If there were snipes lost on these, the dollars could add up fast.

I was dissappointed as I had hoped to start collecting this set by picking up 50 - 100 PSA 9's, with a few 8's. PSA 9 prices in this set are much lower than in the '61 set, even though the SMR is similar. $80 vs $65 and $80. In the Superior auction, the 9's in the '61 set went for an average of about $185.

I won the following #569 Cimoli PSA 9 for $52, the #574 Sievers PSA 9 for $57, and the #559 Bailey PSA 9 for $31. i alos won 7 easy PSA 8 for $84( 122,125,229,518,542,578,and 595) If anyone needs any of these cards, PM me with an offer, as I don't plan to start this set after today's disaster.

Good collecting to all of you '65 guys.

PSARich · April 19, 2003 8:21AM

I bid on about 15 PSA 9s and won two. $41 and $49. Both very nice looking cards. I'm pleased!

acowa · April 19, 2003 8:51AM

I am not a collector of 1965's ... but I have to admit that I was glued to this thread. You guys are what make this board great. Since I don't collect 1965's, the bigger issue to me is the apparent failure of esnipe. I would like for someone from esnipe to comment on this thread. The other thing that I picked up is that this auction might have spurred some additional interest in 1965 set collecting.

Congrats to all of you who were able to pick up cards at "bargain" prices. The contributors to this thread make me proud to be a member of the board.

Regards,

Alan

pc · April 19, 2003 8:57AM

all these pop 1 and pop 2 psa 9s were a DISASTER.
without the sniping services the seller lost a
FORTUNE.we ebay sellers know when 2 people have
snipes programmed commons in mint 9 can run $300-500
vs $25-50 with a minute remaining.all buyers here
deserved the break for their time and effort.

acowa · April 19, 2003 9:06AM

Here is a copy of my letter to esnipe. I would genuinely like a straight forward, honest, answer.

<Hi:

I have been an esnipe customer for awhile now and I have been very pleased in general. I primarily use your service for buying rare sportscards. Recently, EBAY ran a set of rare sportscard auctions from one seller that generated quite a bit of interest. Apparently, many, if not all esnipers were very let down by service levels (which cost both you and them money) I have attached a the thread that discusses everyone's experiences here:

http://forums.collectors.com/messageview.cfm?catid=37&threadid=184606&STARTPAGE=1

I would like to get your company's take on this situation.

Regards,

Alan Cowart>

pc · April 19, 2003 10:04AM

Dear Alan,
sorry but we really needed those 65s.
we'll get em in for you next time!.
meanwhile here's a $25 credit
toward your future winnings,
regards
the management
ps...you can see our
newly registered '65 set next week!
(they're bummed too Alan)

JeffVN · April 19, 2003 10:13AM

I have a question for the obviously (and rightly) disappointed snipers in this crowd. Do you think the fact that so many of you used the same program for your sniping - E-Snipe- that may have been a reason for the massive failure by the program to function as designed. I 'm just think out loud here, but it sounds like the program simply could not handle the demand for its services all at one time?

I'm sure the response to Alan's letter will have some explanation, but I'm wondering if anyone has a theory at this point.

Buckwheat · April 19, 2003 10:37AM

Jeff,

The problem was the volume at esnipe, as well as at others. I doubt very seriously it was Ebays problem. This is also evidenced by people not having any problem sniping directly, or with smaller services. The problem was almost 600 auctions ending at exactly the same second. Multiply that by the number of snipes, and I am expect that the pipe connection from Esnipe to the Net to Ebay couldn't handle it.

If the auctions were just spaced by seconds each, it probably would have gone well, I would think. It is kind of like everyone showing up at the stadium at the same second, and they can't all get in the doors at once.

Perhaps Toppsgun or one of you other computer gurus could offer a good explanation. I expected problems, buth thought that my lead time of 20 seconds might keep my snipes ahead of the crowd, but it didn't work out that way.

toppsgun · April 19, 2003 10:49AM

Rob, I have no explanation whatsoever. But as soon as I spotted this auction last Saturday, I recalled my queuing theory studies from MBA school. I told Dan (Dude) I would NOT be sniping any of the auctions because the sniping service wouldn't work. I figured I'd pick off a dozen or so cards by entering bids manually late this morning. My thinking was this: the usual sniper-crowd would get the "Sting" as the window closed before the cyberware executed their bids. Hence, I'd win. Sure 'nuff, not only me, but several more people who had bids in early walked away winners.

I hope some guru (John, etc.) will massage that spreadsheet of his to come up with a theory (albeit tainted now) of what effect population has on card pricing.

Just like we'll never know how much Wayne could've gotten for his set when he sold it directly to Maestro, we really don't know what Maestro's set was worth by breaking it.

Ahhh, those mysterious '65 Topps Baseball cards. Gotta love it. My guess is, this will stir a lot of interest in the set. I just hope "trickle down economics" works in the card business. I'd like to pick up some 8's from all you 9-winners who upgraded.

ANALYSIS-MASTRO'S #1 1965 SET EBAY AUCTION

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