padding the final bid?

calleocho

i was reading John's (basilone) post and he mentioned that some of the cards he bought months ago could be had on ebay for 20% to 50% or so less than what he originally bought them for...

if i had a 1965 set...and i saw prices dropping like that...i might be tempted to bid up the prices on cards that i already owned. (without winning them)

and this of course could be seen as morally wrong, shilling ,spiteful to the other bidders or in a way asuperficial way to keep the prices from hitting the floor .

i know countries sometimes buy their own currency to make it look more atractive.. im not sure if this tatic would apply to cards or not.

im not sure how much sense i am making...but i would like to see what others think about this scenario

Buckwheat

If the other bidders are not there, you will end up owning a lot of cards. When I see cards going for what I think is a great price, I will bid on them. This keeps me in stock of cards to trade and sell, and also helps sellers keep grading cards. If the prices drop to where it doesn't pay to send in raw cards, then the supply will dry up, and I'll never finish my set. Fairly steady prices are good for the market as a whole, because it reassures bidders that if they do ever need to sell, they won't lose their shirt. If prices keep dropping, then the cycle perpetuates itself, because people won't even bid what they think is a fair price for fear of losing their money too fast, and wanting to wait for an even better bargain. Unless you are willing to spend 100's of thousands of dollars, though, you will never be able to keep prices at "above market level prices" ultimately, it requires more collectors to keep prices up.

qualitycards

Ethan - A low # common 1965 PSA-8 smr's for $18.00, many sellers start the auction at $9.99, $12.99 and $14.99. And a good portion of these can be had at the opening bid (plus of course shipping). So a seller may still not be that happy if just 1 bidder wins it. And like BUCK stated, you will own a lot of cards that you already have by padding a sellers auction. ..jay

calleocho

a relative high starting bid would serve as its own padding...

but lets say ...a big time sellers offers 50 psa 8 commons all starting at a dollar each.

now lets say i have all of them and i paid an average of 20 dollars each.

w/ two days left in the auctions i see that 40 of the cards are below 10 dollars

so i decide bid 16 dollars on each. ...hoping to be outbided by a proxy or that a bidder comes back and bids again.

at the end of the day the cards might sell for an average of 19 dollars. w/ me being the winner of maybe 10 auctions

now lets say that i take out the value of my 40 bids and the cards would have sold for an average of 16 dollars.

now...my question is this practice a practical way to keep the values up or not?

and is this a realistic way to manipulate the market.?

i see maybe two answers

1- keeps the prices up and bidders will be accustomed to pay around a certain amount making some raise their max

2-create a superficial market that is bound to crash

BTW i dont personally pad any auctions ...this is just for arguements sake.

FB

I believe that you'll create a false sense of value amongst the dealers and collectors that are sending in cards to PSA. Because they'll be making money - they'll keep sending in more. Eventually, you're money will have to run out and then the bottom will drop out.

The only difference will be is that you'll be holding twice as many cards.

I'd suggest to buy just the cards you need or if you see relatively tough commons from sets that you're knowledgable of going for well below market value - grab them too. As more people close in on finishing their sets, they'll realize how much tougher those cards are than others and you'll be able to make a nice profit. Most collectors don't realize which ones are tough until they hit the 90% mark or a particular card gets a lot of press.

mikeschmidt

Calleocho-

You will be buying a lot of cards to "stabilize" the market, unless you are consistently the third bidder. If you are consistently the third bidder, your bids will not truly affect the auction outcome. Basically the only way this would work is if you had a bidder who was willing to pay a lot more than (s)he ended up paying for the PSA 8's they won.

Though such a strategy seems okay in theory, sometimes, the bottom will fall out. Especially if you ever wish to sell. I've learned a similar lesson the hard way after trying to hoard certain Mike Schmidt high-grade cards (really just holding until I can upgrade to a PSA 10....). Without letting the market operate freely, I was buying too high a % of the population available on the market, causing a crash in certain prices when I stopped bidding. (Though the crash is also partly attributable to ever-increasing populations).

MS

uniship

How can it be considered "padding" when the person is fully willing to pay that price? It should be called "legitimate bidding" instead.

LJB17

As has been suggested, it will eventually catch up with you on the majority of the cards. Where your plan to bid up items does hold some water is on the more scarce items. Vintage 9s and Pre-60s 8s that may be going lower than you think is fair you may be able to bid up some. However, those cards are seldom if ever going below current market value so the point may be moot. The big question here as with many threads is supply and demand.

Are we just at the tip of the supply that is out there on the 60s cards?
This registry is growing, but is it growing fast enough to keep up demand?

I personally would love to get into some of the older sets, but I believe the supply is still out there and prices will come down. At the point they come into my budget I will be one of the individuals pumping that demand back up. There is obviously a finite amount of the cards out there, so with deep enough pockets you could keep prices high by pumping up the various auctions. How deep those pockets need to be is the question you would have to be able to answer in order to enter into that venture in the first place.