I actually feel ok about 'losing' ebay auctions...
moursund
Posts: 3,207 ✭✭✭✭✭
... when the winning bid comes in at ~10% above my max bid.
It shows that I perhaps had a reasonable idea of what the coin would fetch, and maybe I'll score next time. 
What do you all think?
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Comments
I snipe my max bid, sometimes my max bid is not high enough above present bid to be next increment ... those times bug me a little, but I still do not know their max bid ... I do not have unlimited funds so it does not bug me when I am underbidder and it might have saved me from a bad buy.
Someone sniped my bid last night.🤨! Went on sellers list of offerings and there was another one for 1/3 less, BIN , the first one was an auction 😎. You just never know 🙀😉
🎶 shout shout, let it all out 🎶
There's another one, somewhere. That's how I address it. But boy, if it's something I need or want, it's frustrating because I wonder if I should have just put in the nuclear bid at the end. Add 20% at the big house. It gets up there.
Someone should write a book on coin auction psychology and strategies by interviewing a large group of bidders. I would find it fascinating to hear what people think from the big hitters to the eBay folks. I just don't know if people would be honest when giving their opinions
I like it. Mostly, keeps money at hand.
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You do not have unlimited funds? I am shocked, SHOCKED!
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I think even those with "plenty of money" still want a reasonable deal. That's part of the challenge of collecting; not just throwing money at coins...
Personally. I’ll snipe a bid in a heartbeat 😳. Therefore I don’t feel bad when someone gets me. 😉
eBay isn’t for everyone but I have bought hundreds of items and love it.
🎶 shout shout, let it all out 🎶
If I lost by 10%, I would feel fortunate if I were able to get another at my price
If these were rare thingies, I'd agree. The one's I'm after are folder-fodder, AG-VG barber halves mostly right now.
I lose probably 98% of auctions I bid on - lose no sleep at all about that
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I just sniped one for my type set ( it’s silver)🙀😉 These folks use stock enhanced pictures but are very easy to work with return wise and has produced some awesome coins multiple times for me.
🎶 shout shout, let it all out 🎶
Wow that really does look insame!
A lot of times I'm glad some bidiot outbid my overly stupid high bid!!!!!!!!!
"When they can't find anything wrong with you, they create it!"
Funny thing winning an auction.
Realizing you were willing to pay more than any other person on the planet.
Yeah, that is a dubious way to 'win'. The more you win, the more you lose!
But everyone on the planet may be willing to pay the same amount as you.
Are you serious?
Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
"Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value---zero."----Voltaire
"Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said."----Voltaire
When I used to frequent ebay, I would snipe items I really wanted, with a nuclear bid in the last five seconds. Never lost an item I 'really, really' wanted. Probably overpaid for a few, but it was ok with me. Cheers, RickO
I filter out any listing that has "WOW" in the title, so I would have missed it...
mbogoman
https://pcgs.com/setregistry/collectors-showcase/classic-issues-colonials-through-1964/zambezi-collection-trade-dollars/7345Asesabi Lutho
If I’m on a buying spree and I bid on multiple coins simultaneously, I’m often glad when I get outbid on some of them.
Mr_Spud
Well sort of. Think about it. An auction finds the highest price someone is willing to pay for an item, meaning there's no one who will pay more. But that doesn't mean the high bidder is willing to pay more than everyone else. If the entire population of the world would pay $100 for something, the first person to put their paddle up gets it. It may be that not one person will pay $105, but everyone could be willing to pay $100.
These guys can’t spell and list alot of Wow , super best, etc. Their coins speak for themselves. 👍🏼 ( they are very nice)
🎶 shout shout, let it all out 🎶
When I shop on eBay I look for best offer items that I'm really interested in. Then I go to the seller store and look and see what they're actually selling and If the item that I want, which is usually a coin, is the only coin in their listing, I know a low offer is probably a winner. It may be a devious method, but I usually get it for less than it's value.
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You're assuming an efficient market. Sure coins have more of an efficient market than most hobbies, but it's s till by no means perfect. Have an auction end on NYE, or during the Super Bowl and see what I'm talking about. Not even talking about obscure areas like tokens. The same token could get $40 or $200 depending on one month to the next. Even with the huge market of ebay, it's not purely efficient...
I often think of a quote I saw once that the underbidder is usually the winner...
I will never bid in another eBay auction. They have brought me nothing but aggravation and disappointment. On two occasions I have been listed has the top bidder down to the very last second and then more bids appear after the clock expires, and I got nothing. I could place no higher bid and had no idea where the real bidding was.
It was my bad on one item. I saw it in a dealer’s fixed price list and I did not act on it. The person who won it on the eBay site paid $250 more than it was listed for on the dealer’s site. It had sat there for a few months.
I hate the way eBay runs their auctions, and I will have nothing to do with them ever. Life is too short, and there are more positive things to do in this hobby than put up with eBay’s garbage bid policies.
For sellers ebay is often a loser; if you let the ebay "free market" dictate results, the coins will sell under real market value almost every time in pure no reserve auctions. There just isn't the money or serious bidders we see on HA or GC.
That's because eBay treats their customers on both ends poorly. I have heard dealers say that they have had returns when they got back a rock on a box instead of what they sold to the high bidder. As for bidders, my experience has been lousy.
Yes, I understand all of that. But I can certainly point to instances where I've lost auctions because I wasn't willing to go higher, but I would have paid the winning bid. Depending on when you jump into the bidding, you may be guaranteed to get there if two or more people have the same max based on the specific bid you jump in on before starting a back and forth. Sure someone in the world may be willing to come in at a higher price and just didn't see the auction. That's not my point. Just that the max bid doesn't by default indicate no one is willing to pay as much as the high bidder--it's only an indication that no one aware of the auction is willing to pay more.
There are millions of coins out there. Unless something you're seeking is so rare that overpaying might be your only option, come up with your stopping point and stick with it. Another will be at hand soon enough.
Just that the max bid doesn't by default indicate no one is willing to pay as much as the high bidder--it's only an indication that no one aware of the auction is willing to pay more.
Exactly.
But I have also accidentally forgotten about auctions and feel a pain when I go back to check and see a winning bid much lower than I would have paid. Would I still have won it? Would it have gone higher? No way to know.
At the time and location of the sale, no one was willing to pay more. Even if someone were willing to pay more after the sale, that data point contains new information--the sale price--and could simply be a reflection of the auction changing the market.
Because I don’t know the high bidders max (unless it less than a full bid increment), I don’t have regrets because maybe they bid the moon. And typically I forget about it anyways within a week.
However, there is one exception on a particular auction that I passed on bidding as I thought another specimen would appear at a better price. It has not to my knowledge and that was about 7 years ago. I don’t know what the winner's max was, but in retrospect I would have bid at least 50% higher than what it closed for.
eBay definitely has some negatives, but it also has some great positives. So that’s the same as every other possible sales venue/marketplace. I’ve found the positives to outweigh the negatives as both a buyer and seller.
Bidding on ebay has gotten a bit cray-cray over the past few months. I was underbidder on two Large Cent auctions recently... out bid by ~$200 on a raw 1798 that finally hammered at just over $650, and the bidding on an 1807/6 jsut got crazy early on... I think it finally hammered at over $3k. There's just too much money out there for me to be competitive.
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I lost one that I should have gone a bit higher on. I felt remorse for a bit, then realized I already owned that same coin, but not in a PCGS holder. Someone got it for less than I thought it was really worth, but their gain is not my loss. I would buy it in a heartbeat if I saw it again, but I'm ok with not winning. No regrets.
Depends on the coin. If it's something that only comes around once every few years, missing out by "saving" 10% is a hollow victory.
If it's something that you can find basically anytime, sure. Then again, why bother collecting stuff like that?
In between, the strategy must suit the circumstances.
When I was younger and dating, and I would get rejected/ depressed by another fair miss.
I was told they were like busses another would come along soon and get off the bus, and they did
so don't fret! same applies to coins.
I agree with you for much of the premise here.
Some coins are much more difficult to find than others, so sometimes missing by less than or at 10% is a GREAT source of frustration.
Sometimes I snipe, or go live on an Auction, but I always have a number. When my number is close (win or lose), I feel better because I think that I generally understand how the rest of the market values that example.
If I get blown out, I go back and see if I thought I missed something.
If my bid looks a little too nuclear in retrospect ... I do the same.
“We are only their care-takers,” he posed, “if we take good care of them, then centuries from now they may still be here … ”
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