How do you search for eBay auctions?

CIVITAS · June 3, 2008 3:17AM

So let's say you were a collector of Polish coins looking for a 1990 100,000 Zlotych coin. How do you do a quick search on eBay for it?

I'm curious, because different results come up for each search and I'm wondering how the majority here searches.

theboz11 · June 3, 2008 3:42AM

I believe that ebays search automatically allows for $ and ,

Making it no difference whether they are inserted in the search or title.

Hussulo · June 3, 2008 4:29AM

I would use 1990 Poland 100* and that would cover 100,000 , 100000 , 100.000 etc.. I know it would probably bring up 100 Zlotych coins but it would be more thorough.

Syracusian · June 3, 2008 4:34AM

Josh, you might want to add an additional option to your poll (other).

I'd use Poland, or Poland 1990, but I wouldn't add the denomination. If I already had Poland as a favourite search, I'd simply insert 1990 to the box on the left.

I've asked these questions myself at times, and I've seen that I often miss items if I put too much info on ebay's search engine.

PS: Title only.

CIVITAS · June 3, 2008 5:31AM

Good point, Dimitri. Added.

CIVITAS · June 3, 2008 5:36AM

<< <i>I believe that ebays search automatically allows for $ and ,

Making it no difference whether they are inserted in the search or title. >>

To some extent, that's true. But if you search for 100000 then items with 100,000 will not show up, and vice-versa. I was kind of surprised by that.

farthing · June 3, 2008 5:52AM

I would probably just search for Poland as my first attempt. Too much variation from seller to seller to start any finer. If there were waaay too many items selected (>1000) then I would try Poland 1990.

Stork · June 3, 2008 6:05AM

Too many words in the search lead to too many chances to encounter mis-spellings etc.

For that particular coin I would search twice, once for "Poland 1990" and once for "Polish 1990".

When I'm going through looking for medals I just run alot of individual key words through. In general there are about 10,000 listings for exonumia. I type in: baby, babies, child, dog, greyhound, deco, nouveau, yencesse, bottee, and roty. Each of these gives me at most 100 or so which are easy enough to scan through quickly. I get rid of the 'best match' and go with 'newly listed'.

For what it's worth

(I also stalk some sellers periodically)

Cathy

Hussulo · June 3, 2008 6:08AM

To some extent, that's true. But if you search for 100000 then items with 100,000 will not show up, and vice-versa. I was kind of surprised by that.

Yes but did you know that if you use * it will search the lists for any thing you have typed in, plus any other letters or numbers after the *.

For instance a search for 100* will bring up:

100
100,000
100000
100,000,000

etc.

or a a search for proof* will bring up:

proof
proofs
prooflike

or a search for Sov* will bring up:

Sovereign
etc..

Daltonista · June 3, 2008 9:35AM

And if you use parentheses and type multiple search terms inside them, separated by commas, no spaces, all possibilities will turn up, as in: (Poland,Polish)(1987,1990) . The comma serves as an "or" so the search results would include both 1987 and 1990 in this case. There's got to be a way to narrow down the category by fooling with the Coins > Europe > Poland.

I'm sure I didn't invent this, but something that's worked for me for years after I fell into it, is setting up local saves of my searches. After you've got a search drilled down to where you're happy with it, go to your toolbar and click in sequence on File > Send > Shortcut to desktop. On your desktop you can "rename" to shorten the filename and then drag it into a folder of saved searches.

Then, whenever you want to re-try your searches, just open that folder and drag the saved files (URLs, really) by their icons into the open browser window. One at a time, of course.

One that I check out a couple of times a week in UK exonumia, and then again in coins, is
(181*) silver.

Just this moment I got this one, a single result...right on your trail, Josh!
I just tried and saved "Poland 1990" (no quotes) in
"Listed in category: Coins & Paper Money > Coins: World > Europe > Poland."

Maybe you should save that search?

Best to all ~
Tom

JZrarities · June 3, 2008 9:36AM

Title:

(poland,polish) (zlotych,zloty) 100*

in parenthesis add common misspellings
no spaces between commas, space between parenthesis, star after 100 to get anyhing with the first three letters '100'

CIVITAS · June 4, 2008 1:37AM

An interesting picture of people's search habits. Maybe we'll get a few more votes.

How do you search for eBay auctions?

Comments