My favorite ebay searches - share yours

roadrunner · April 22, 2005 2:42PM

I wish I had been doing this a year or two ago, would have saved me many hours on ebay filtering through auctions by firms you have no chance of finding a good deal. Nothing like wandering into a 5 page spread of a "Superior" auction for example. It's like wading up stream.

My favorite search is for "NGC or "PCGS" "coins" only.
I supplement by excluding my 10 worst dealers on ebay that often clog up the system with pages of their recycled stuff. Odds of getting anything reasonable and of quality is very very slim.
Then I select min amount of say $300.
Then select "1" bid minimum. In 95% of the cases is someone hasn't bid yet, there is a GOOD reason. Time is valuable and even this search takes me 30 minutes to wade through. If you want hot coins that have attracted attention, maybe enter "5" bids.

My other favorite search is for older holder coins. I use
"old" "holder" "generation" "ogh" and "rattler" and the key words to search for. Nothing else. Usually about 1 page of items comes up for a 8 day period. Gives me a nice preview of what old holdered stuff is coming up. I almost never win any gold coins. The newbies just keep coming in and beating me up. Type coins I can win on occasion.

roadrunner

clw54 · April 22, 2005 2:52PM

(pcgs, ngc, anacs)

markglicker · April 22, 2005 2:54PM

Thanks roadrunner, I was never aware of the 1 bid minimun option.

braddick · April 22, 2005 3:08PM

Favorite searches: "holed" "hole" "damaged" "damage" "patina" "carved" "net" "concept" "matte" "colors" "wild" "goetz" "lusitania" "1795" "worn" "neon" and, of course all the various grading services.

clackamas · April 22, 2005 3:25PM

BU 19** roll, OBW, ANACS, PCGS Jefferson, PCGS Lincoln, PCGS 1968

stman · April 22, 2005 3:39PM

I "Look" for the auctions that say "L@@K."

roadrunner · April 22, 2005 3:53PM

Is there an easy way to save a favorite search rather than typing it each time? Takes me about 60 seconds to type in all the stuff but still is a pain in the keister. My "exclude" dealer list just got to "11."
Added another "wannabe" today. Picked up a neg too. Oh well.
And am sure to get a 2nd neg on Saturday.

roadrunner

prooflike · April 22, 2005 3:59PM

I search for 'estate' 'inherited' 'grandpa' or 'acg'

(Actually, I only search 'pcgs', I would also do NGC & ANACS, but just don't have the time)

solid · April 22, 2005 4:19PM

Is there an easy way to save a favorite search rather than typing it each time?

After you set up a search and the first page of results are displayed, you can just
Add to Favorites in Explorer, and give it an appropriate description. I believe all of
the search variables are included in the address bar.

In the future, just bring up that favorite and you'll get fresh results.

Example - One of my favorites in Explorer - how I look for Jefferson nickles in PCGS, NGC or ANACS slabs.

http://search.ebay.com/pcgs-ngc-anacs_Jefferson-1938-Now_W0QQbsZSearchQQcatrefZC6QQfclZ1QQfromZR2QQfrppZ100QQsacatZ41087QQsatitleZQ28pcgsQ2cngcQ2canacsQ29QQsbrftogZ1QQsofocusZbs

Ken

Wekar · April 22, 2005 4:46PM

I used to save my searches as favorite bookmarks in IE, but one day I noticed an "Add to Favorites" link on the right between the search bar and the results... now all my favorite searches are saved by eBay, and show up on the My eBay page. Much nicer to have eBay keep my searches, so I can use them sometimes at work on break or my backup computer, or now in Firefox without having to transfer all kinds of saved bookmark files.

Here's one of my longer favorite searches, to find a 2000 P & D 5c pcgs ms66fs and 2000 P&D 1c ms68rd.
(2000,2000p,2000d) pcgs (jefferson,nickel,5c,ms66fs,full,step,steps,fs,lincoln,memorial,cent,1c,ms68rd,rd,red).

to make this thread OT, my favorite search though is (televue, tele vue), I've gotten a couple good deals on some excellent eyepieces for my 'scope.

dtkk49a · April 22, 2005 4:52PM

One of my favorites is ton* for toned coins. Another good one is "rainbow"

RYK · April 22, 2005 8:15PM

Interesting question. I will start by saying that I rarely buy anything on ebay, especially coins. I still like to check it out, though.

Numismatic literature with "bowers" on the title.

Numismatic literature with "stack" on the title.

$5 gold coins with "D" (for Dahlonega) which mostly nets Denver mint $5's, especially 1909-D

Gold coins with "O" in the title

Gold coins with "CC" in the title.

$1, $3, and $5 gold coins with "$3" in the title.

roadrunner · April 23, 2005 1:54AM

thanks Solid and Wekar, I'll have to try those out....and save myself some typing.

roadrunner

streeter · April 23, 2005 4:02AM

There are about 5 types of coins I prefer.
I search every day for those coins. AUCTIONS ENDING SOONEST then go back to coins ending in next 24 hours. After a while you recognize the pics of dealers that you won't go near with a 10 foot pole. So there are a couple per day that you may be interested in. Set the sniper service on the coins that end on an odd time and bookmark those that I want to bid on myself.

I'm batting about 50% with this method and it really doesn't take much time.

I used to search by newly listed BIN's but found that when I got the coins that were reasonably priced, all I got were coins weak for the grade.

roadrunner · April 23, 2005 4:44AM

Streeter, that would be my experience too. A BIN is almost always overpriced and being sold at retail by a dealer. Frankly, I see a BIN and it usually don't even look at the listing, especially if there are no bids yet and the coin is inside 12 hours to go. I've never bought a BIN coin yet.

roadrunner

t3rr0r1sm · April 23, 2005 5:26AM

pcgs -indian -200* -199* -198*
< $450 in 5 dollar liberties.

CarlSpangler · April 23, 2005 5:36AM

I search PCGS, and NGC. I will also search MS to weed out Proofs.

cladking · April 23, 2005 7:57AM

Mint set (-proof). 5. unopened, box.

anablep · April 23, 2005 9:18AM

ANA, ANACS, PNG

RBinTex · April 23, 2005 10:48AM

How do you exclude certain sellers?

boyhowdy · April 23, 2005 2:30PM

"anacs, net"

mikebombs · April 23, 2005 6:12PM

I go to US coins, gold, and I put the following into the search criteria

(1900,1901,1902,1903,1904,1905,1906,1907,1908)

Sometimes I will add ms to the out side of the parentheses and exclude live auctions and a handful of other sellers.

Vetter · April 23, 2005 9:47PM

I use "full horn" You should see the junk listed as full horn. Some are only half.

roadrunner · April 23, 2005 11:28PM

To exclude sellers - the best option in my opinion: __________>

On the advanced search page about 1/3 of the way down you'll see a box that says "include" seller as a selection. Just select the list set and you'll see the choice of "exclude." I no longer have to wade through complete inventories of ebay Power Sellers that just clog up the ewaves with stuff that is typically recycled and over priced.
I believe you can only list 10 sellers to exclude.....and unfortunately my list with be up to 50 or more if I could select that many.

roadrunner

flaminio · April 24, 2005 12:43AM

Make sure if you're searching on "PCGS" that you include possible spelling variations -- (pcgs,pgcs,pcsg,p.c.g.s.) and so forth. Sometimes you can pick up some extra things that way.

For saving searches, like the previous poster said an easy way is to just add it to your Favorites in your browser. I have a subfolder called "eBay Searches" that has all my searches in it. One click and there it is with current info.

There is also an "Add to Favorites" link that comes up when you search -- this puts the search in your favorite searches list on My eBay. A handy feature there is to have the search email you whenever it "hits". This is very useful for stuff that only comes up very infrequently that you don't want to miss. I have about 30 "email me" searches going on.

My favorite ebay searches - share yours

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