ANALYSIS-MASTRO'S #1 1965 SET EBAY AUCTION
Basilone
Posts: 2,492 ✭✭
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:
This should be fun to watch (and bid on)....
John Basilone
basilone@neo.rr.com
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
0
Comments
Dave
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
Dave
I know what you mean...the out-bid emails are coming in as I write this!
John
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
The analogy to poker is dead on...I love this stuff...
eBay auctions
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
eBay auctions
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
You've been emailed.
Matt
Skycap
Well...my $6k in bids...is down to $160.00 in bids where Im winning. Time to adjust the snipes!!!!
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
John
Wayne
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.
Dave
John (Basilone), did your snipes go off??
so it goes.congrats to the winners.i suspect many
cards would have sold for much more if the sniping
services had worked.
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.
Almost all of my missed snipes (over 200 of them) were on PSA 9's. Certainly would have improved the total take!
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
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
Website: http://www.qualitycards.com
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
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
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
Wayne
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.
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.
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
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.
<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>
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)
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.
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.
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.