One cent short ...

I'm going to be kicking myself over this one for awhile. I was doing my usual eBay search this morning, world coins under $5 ending soonest, and at the top of the list is a Mexico 1929 2 centavos. Well, Mexico is a country I'm trying to get a full 20th century collection for, and this is the only 2 centavo I need, because it is $85 at the lowest grade in the book. The bid was at 99 cents with less than a minute left. So I'm kind of panicking trying to look at this to see what the catch is, and as there's 5 seconds left I enter a bid of $15. It says "You have been outbid! Current bid $15." So in other words, the other person bid the same as me, and his bid wins since he was first. I tried to enter a new bid but ran out of time. If I'd just done $15.01 like I usually do, I would have had an amazing deal. As is, I'll probably never own that coin, since I'm not going to pay $85 for it. I wish I'd had more time to think about it. And it was a nice coin, not uncirculated but no real problems. It should probably have sold for more than $100.

 

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Sorry to hear 'bout that.

It has also happened to me on several occasions.

 

You don't know what the other bidder's proxy bid was. He may have put in a $100 proxy. That means his bid would cover your bid until you reached his maximum bid.

 

If that were the case, the winning bid would have been $15.25. If winning bid is the same as the number you just put in, not any higher, it means it's the same bid that you did.
Hopefully that made sense.

 

Yep... the $15.01 wouldn't have worked if the winner had already entered $15.00 as his max bid. You would have had to go to $15.25 and probably would have run out of time anyway. But the idea of entering a max bid (initially) of one cent over an even increment is a good idea, as most bids are placed in even dollar amounts. So if you had placed your $15.01 before the other bidder placed his $15.00, you would have won by a single cent.

 

Dear Hiddendragon,

Not only did you miss out on a near win of a relatively expensive coin that sold for less than a 1/4 of it's catalogue price, you are from here now on to be skinned for your "One Cent Short..." posting. :devil:

With sympathy,
Joe

 

Here's the listing if you're curious. And another strange thing I didn't mention is that I swear this coin wasn't there at first. I did the search, looked down to the bottom of the page, noticed it was set on 25 coins per page, so I changed it to 50 so it would be less annoying, and all of a sudden the coin was there. I don't know if someone had made a higher bid and retracted it at the last minute or what, but it was something strange going on. Like I said, if I'd had time to think I would have entered a higher bid, but there just wasn't time. And yes, I always enter odd amounts on my bids because you can outbid someone by one cent on their proxy bid as long as it exceeds the original highest bid by 25 cents, if you know what I mean.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/160781406535?ssPageName=STRK:MEDWX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1435.l2649

 

I don't think you can retract any bid once an auction enters its last 24 hour period.

 

Maybe this will be a lesson to some of you who are just trying to win an item cheap even though you might know that its true value is far greater.

Chris

 

Oh.....too bad!!!! I HATE when that happens!

 

Another thing I was thinking was that there was a higher bid and the seller cancelled it because he didn't like something about the bidder.

 

In my opinion it only makes sense as someone buying something to try to get the best deal you can. The seller could have started the listing with the price of $80. Coin values on eBay are all over the place and often can be way higher or lower than the book value. You can't blame a buyer for trying to save money if they can.

 

For all you know, the winning bidder may have set their max at $25. I'm not suggesting that you bid $75+ for a $100 coin, but $15 is a poor low-ball bid. Let me ask you this.....Would you have been happy to get a $100 coin for half price?

Chris

 

Great. Now to make matters worse lets all grab pitchforks and poke HiddenDragon for a few hours. :devil:

 

I've learned when bidding at the last second, just put in the amount you're willing to spend, if you get it at that price or lower, you win. If you don't get it, you still win because you didn't spend more than you wanted and there's always another coin out there you can win.

 

This is exactly what happened. The other person had a max bid higher than your bid. It could have been $500 for all we know. Or a snipe bid.
I used to always wait till the last seconds, but would put it an absolute max bid I would pay. If you lose, you can take solace in the fact you didn't overpay for a coin.
You have to expect the snipes and other watchers.

 

Nice rodeo, you said what I was typing, while I was typing.

 

HA! Wow

 

In theory, would I be happy to get a coin for half price? Of course. In reality, no matter how much something is worth, I can only afford to spend so much, so for me it's a choice between getting it cheap or not getting it at all. That's why it is so disappointing when I miss a chance to get it cheap. I'm 32 years old, don't make that much and am getting married in 3 months. There are thousands of coins out there that I love, but I have to accept that most of them will never be mine. That's why bargains are so important to me.

 

Man, I feel ya !

I have even had bidders contact me with an offer to place a higher bid after one of my auctions closed. But there will always be another auction, another item up for sale. Maybe you missed one, maybe you'll find a better one ? These are not the kind of things that are sold by Heritage. It's eBay !!!

The fun is in the search. If you had already obtained every coin you wanted, what would the next step be ? Just keep looking and bidding.

Personally, I get overbid about 5 to 1 on the stuff I look at. And a few times I have overpaid. But the chase is the important part. IMHO

gary