Consigners bidding on their cards
FrankLee
Posts: 5 ✭
First post. Signed up a few weeks ago in the middle of a big auction of 1975 Topps ( 500 plus ), but was unable to post due to waiting period. There was one bidder who bid on every one of those 500 auctions. He had placed 1596 bids and 99 % of his bids were with this seller. Tonight, I was interested in the 1975 Reds auctions. Lo and behold, there is a bidder with ( 17380 ) feedback placing bid after bid after bid on these auctions. Somebody here please tell me that I am crazy, but something smells awful fishy ??
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Welcome to the boards and to the world of shill bidding.
Inquiring minds want to know. Gary Nolan, Darrel Chaney, Clay Carroll, George Foster, Luv me sum Big Red Machine. Would a sh*ll be this blatant? Any interest or anyone want to post a link?
If you are talking about the 4sharpcorners auction of a 1975 set break, I bid on perhaps 200 of those and watched most of the rest in case one slipped through without much action.
I already have a 100% complete set and a second set at 75%. The 1975 set is one of the most popularly collected sets, and will always draw a lot of action, whether it's new collectors or those looking to upgrade.
In addition to that, the 1975 Cincinnati Reds team set is also an extremely popular set to collect, with some of the players being extremely tough in high grade.
I am not going to speak to whether or not I believe the auction was shilled, but even if it wasn't, in this instance, you were going to have to go strong to get cards from a popular set listed by a cosigner that made sure to send out a mass email advertising the fact that the set break was occurring.
Welcome to the boards!
I am a 75 Topps-Aholic. Been buying and selling for over 20 years. Not interested in uttering the “S” word. Bid $ 25 on Ed Kranepool in 7 in the previous auction for fun. An under-bidder showed up with feedback ( 1945 ), now feedback ( 1971 ). I had looked at a huge amount of those auctions and he was an under-bidder in all of them. Was interested in the Reds auction tonight, but really can not understand the bid after bid after bid from such a seasoned bidder ??
simple solution, snipe
Not really a total solution if I’m “willing” to pay $50 (and put in that snipe) and the underbidder is only willing to pay $30, while the shill bid is $40. I am still paying more than I should have.
I snipe. If I'm willing to pay $50.00 for a card and get it, there's no problem for me.
A long time ago, I decided to stick with a plan on bidding, I NEVER pay more than I am willing to.
Mostly why people consign things on ebay am I right?
All the auction houses I deal with have extended bidding time.
Other than ebay, what major auction can this be applied?
Some auction houses say right in their Terms and Conditions, that they can bid on their own auction AND they can see all the advanced bidding of all their registered bidders.
A card opens at $10. You put in a max bid of $100. Auction house can just enter their max at $95, and ZOOM the card is now sitting at your max bid, so no real chance of a 'steal of a deal' below what you're willing to pay.
Same here, I snipe everytime. I don't like to show my cards early and it seems 50% of the time there is at least 1 other sniper.
I was in a Loupe auction last week and there was a person who was bidding on everything from graded modern and vintage to raw junk wax and everything in between. He won 90% of 20 items I stuck around for. I was able to win one. In a few cases it seemed the bidding was much higher than ebay and Loupe bidding always increases to your bid rather than placing max bids. This bidder would increase a bid that was already at eBay price by a sizeable amount. One example was $50 and it jumped to $80 and everyone backed off. This happened enough times that it seemed like either a scam or somebody had their parents credit card. In the short time I was there I believe there was over $2500 purchased by the bidder.
There's nothing saying you can't bid on your own auctions, and I would if something was going to be sold too cheap and I would rather keep it for a small fee, but I don't see a point to overpaying for lots of auctions unless it's a way to get the crowd pumped up when I've seen a few guys have 1 or 2 people and cards are selling for next to nothing with no excitement.
I’m not OK with a shill bidder squeezing every cent out of my proxy bid when no other legitimate bidding is taking place at that level. Not sure why you would be OK with that.
Still looking for an idea about what is going on tonight. If some kind soul would post a link to the 1975 Gary Nolan ending tonight and offer a theory about the bid strategy of ( 17381 ). He has bid 26 times on this card. Is he really trying to win it ? He has 1940 bids in the last 30 days and 77% with this consigner. They same to have the most loyal bidders on eBay.
I snipe as well. If someone is trying to shill 500 cards in a set to drive up bidding and they end up being the under bidder on a number of them, the odds are they will also win back a lot of their own cards. It's a fools errand to try to make money that way. What to watch for is bid retractions. If someone is becoming high bidder to reveal the max bid and then retracting, that's the big red flag.
I’ve won hundreds of auctions from this seller. I’ve lost thousands of auctions from this seller. You’re not alone in the auction world….
ok, don't snipe. I have been sniping for 20 years and get tons of deals. if you are worried about shills, don't bid. even simpler.
there are definitely people out there shilling but it is not as prevalent as chat boards would have you think. chat boards would have you believe every auction house and every ebay auction is shilled then in the next breath they will be complaining about how bad their consignments did and the next breath of what a great deal they got. snipe what you are willing to pay. you may get shilled at times but on average you will be better off financially and you won't have wasted countless brain cells and stress trying to figure out if you were shilled. good luck
I didn’t say not to snipe. I snipe all the time. I’m just saying it doesn’t prevent you from being shilled.
maybe not all the time but most shills shill existing bids. putting a bid out there early is going to cost you more than any shill bidder on average over say a 6 month window. just trying to help the op out as he seems to be worrying about things he can't control.
if I collect something and someone puts up a run. if I don't need it , I will still put a floor bid on everything because I don't mind getting duplicates to sell. the op would be on here worrying that I am a shill bidder. seems like wated energy to me
Who was that masked man? Crawling back in my hole for another 20 years.
There's a lot of things I am not ok with. If I can't do anything about it, I have the choice to accept it and deal with it, or I can get out of the hobby.
How can you participate in eBay auctions that allow bid retractions?
Of course I would rather pay $40.00 for a card than $50.00, but if I have decided I'm willing to pay $50.00, I'm going to be happy with the result.
I enjoy collecting, I stay within a budget.
If shill bidding bothers you too much, stop participating in auctions and just do BIN's.
I participate in horse auctions almost daily. Owners bid their horses up to whatever level they deem the worth of the horse. They have to still pay the full fee if they win the horse back. It happens at least 25% of the time. You either pay or not. Same with car auctions. They don’t call it shill bidding there. Pay what you think they are worth. If it goes to high , stop.
I always use a sniping service when bidding.
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
I must not understand this correctly. I thought sniping is putting in a bid right before the auction expires. Doesn't sniping, if I understand it correctly, prevent shill bidding against you? I'm ignoring other legitimate bidding for the example.
Even if you snipe, you are putting in a proxy (maximum) bid. I could put in a snipe for $500 and end up winning the auction for $200. If a shill bid has been entered for more than the next highest legitimate bid, I will still pay more than I should have whether or not I snipe.
It really all depends on whether you think bidding on your own auctions is ethical. I don’t. If you want to ensure the card does not sell for less than a certain amount, make that the minimum bid. It’s not cool to start the auction at .99 when there is really a hidden minimum bid.
Thank you for explaining. I've been to many live estate auctions and have an acquaintance who owns an auction business. I've heard stories of poor turnout where a person bought a large majority of their families estate auctioned items in order try and sell them for more. The advantages and disadvantages of living in a rural area.
I figured maybe the consignors also buy cards they consign for others either for their own investment.
I remember when ebay first started and you could restract bids as long as it there were 24 hours left in the auction. You could bid $1000 and see a top bid and state it was an error and should have been $100. I think this was often done to reveal what the reserve price was.
Sniping definitely helps limit your exposure to the "chip bidding" shill bidder but as Dave pointed out, if another snipe or early maximum bid is a shiller, there's nothing you can do to protect against that. Few things work ideally in this world. As Joe mentioned, just set your bid for the amount you are comfortable paying and let the chips fall where they may. The alternative (not bidding on auctions) is not a realistic solution, either, for most collectors. This is also why I like major auction house bidding and the "15 or 30 minute rule" in extended bidding (for those auction houses that now close lot by lot, which are most of them).
Collecting 1970s Topps baseball wax, rack and cello packs, as well as PCGS graded Half Cents, Large Cents, Two Cent pieces and Three Cent Silver pieces.
I wonder how many here participated in auctions listed by sellers in SCD loooong before eBay existed.
"Top All Bid" we'll bid for you up to that amount.
FUNNY, I won 5-6 auctions in a row right at my "top all" bid.
Not exactly the good old days.
Probably why shill bidding doesn't bother me as much as it does some.
Remember when SCD was the Bible and was like 150 pages. Still remember waiting to see what Polo Grounds was listing that week
I don't think it would be outside of the realm of possibility that a buyer would bid on multiple listings from the same seller. Interested in the listings they are offering, such as s et builder trying to finish or upgrade, combining with 1 seller is incentive enough to bid with one who is fair with combined shipping vs trying to win cheaper versions of the same card across dozens of sellers.
I'm sure some shilling happens as well. I would guess it is not as widespread as some people seem to think, but who really knows for sure. Using snipe services is the only way to bid in my opinion. I almost never wins items that I toss up a bid and let Ebay (and other bidders) control my proxy bid. if there is a bid on something that isn't ridiculously high and anyone else wants it, your bid will likely be eclipsed eventually.
I got amazing deals from Teletrade back in the day. Honestly though, I can't even remember how it all worked.
I miss Teletrade. I have a stack of Heath Schuler RCs that I “won” from them