The volatility on EBAY on many cards is a real problem.
olb31
Posts: 3,371 ✭✭✭✭✭
One day a 1987 Tiffany Mcgwire sales for $1,000, the next day it goes for $700, then $500, back up to $700. This isn't the only card with this volatility, there are many others. As a CPA, I like some volatility, but more on the side of consistency, with slight upticks. While it makes the hobby a little more exciting, it creates a lot of unknowns.
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Not accounting for any sort of artificial inflation by nefarious people I can say for certain that any time there is a Mattingly auto or numbered card that I am bidding on that price is going to get inflated past what most people would consider "reasonable". I think that is the nature of any type of auction. If someone finds a specific item that they want for their collection they are willing to pay more than someone that is just looking for financial gain. I know I pay more than I should and that I won't get my money back any time soon if ever, but I want what I want and I'm willing to pay for it.
Kris
My 1971 Topps adventure - Davis Men in Black
I understand what you mean with volatility. Sometimes a card might go for cheaper than I expected, and sometimes it takes off like a rocket. It's got to the point that when I enter an auction, I just don't know what the heck to expect.
What's the problem?
People love sports cards. Some people are idiots, some are thieves and some are great human beings.
Spend what you are comfortable with and don't worry about the rest.
As long as I paid the $500, I am good with the other sales.
A problem from the buyer's or seller's perspective? If you are buyer, show restraint and don't bite on the auction where the card price is being driven up if you cannot afford it. As a seller, if you cannot accept the risk of an auction ending at a lower price, list the card using BIN at a price you are comfortable with. This is nothing new and I don't see the problem.
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As long as you don't bid more than you are willing to pay, it's not really a big problem imo.
I agree wholeheartedly with your first post in this thread, but this one I cannot see the logic. If someone is shill bidding you up on an auction, with no intent to pay, this is not right. You as high bidder are going to pay more than you normally would have paid had the shill bidder not existed. In essence, the shill bidder is causing you to pay more, and you lose money. That is a problem.
(edited for clarity)
Don't know about the '87 tiffany centering but the '85 has 9s with centering all over the place that certainly warranty to volatility in price variances.
I should have been more clear.
I got shilled once. I was not happy. Ebay was of no help. I honored my bid.
Now if there's an item I want/need, I use a snipe service and place a bid I am comfortable with paying and forget about it. If I win, great, if not, that's life.
With the popularity of using one of the consignors, I am sure shill bidding is pretty rampant. Ebay also continues to allow bid retractions which is 99% of the time a bidder finding out the high bid, which is worse than shilling in my opinion.
Since shill bidding is easy to do and bid retractions are allowed and nothing is going to be done about it, I changed the way I bid and it doesn't bother me anymore.
As stated above I was the "innocent" bidder one time. Happily, it wasn't a high dollar item.
It's wrong to shill bid and even worse if two sellers collude to drive up the price of an item, but bidders are just going to have to control their impulses and stop playing right into the shiller's game plan.
If you can't do a little research to find out what something's worth and bid what you can afford, you are going to pay too much.
I have been complaining about bid retractions for over 10 years. Nothing is going to be done about it.
In a "fair" auction, you are not allowed to retract. In a "fair" auction you are not allowed to bid on your own items, but let's face it, it's probably common for sellers to have others bid on items if the bidding isn't going anywhere.
Bottom line (for me) is if you keep bidding and bidding on an item and then cry about how much you paid, you are being silly. No one made you bid.
If you can't change the system change the way you deal with it.
Lastly, ebay doesn't force you to honor your winning bids anyway.
I know it can vary on what we collect, but for what I buy, I 100% agree with Joe Banzai. When I am bidding on a card that I want, I always look at the SOLD prices and subjectively adjust for sales that look unusually high or low. I do not bid on many /1 or /5 or /10, to there are usually twenty or more completed auctions to include. Once I average a reasonable sample size, that becomes my max bid. If I get outbid, 99% of the time, there is already another auction for the same card.
I like the volatility, makes for more interesting markets. Anyways if you look at the longer trend, it has been generally upward for a decade now. I think the impact of any manipulation gets muted by the sheer size of the hobby and the number of "educated" participants like everyone on this board (ha ha). That being said, that doesn't mean we don't see spikes like 2016 summer and the COVID buying.