Why so much for a Engelhard 4oz-poured bar-up to $3500 sofar...

This is the second 4oz Engelhard bar that I've seen go for over $2000.. It seems it's the same 2 bidders already up to $3500 with 18hr's to go. The same 2 bidders bought the last bar for $2200-plus...
http://www.ebay.com/itm/4-Troy-Oz-Engelhard-old-pour-silver-bar-VERY-RARE-4oz-poured-999-/140818530046

 

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Maybe one's a shill bidder

 

I don't think so. There was one that was sold last week and it was the same bidders, bidding on that one also.

This is cointalk, bullion investing and we can't really have threads that don't mention eagles, oops, now I've done it.

 

There are collectors of these earlier hand-poured bars, especially ones from the 70s and 80s. I know engelhard and johnson-matthey have followings. As to how large of one, I have no clue since I'm not one of them. APMEX has some of these earlier ones from time to time. They usually have odd weights.

 

they are all shill bidders. theres no reason it would sell for a 1000 dollars a ounce

 

You are 100% wrong. There are some very serious collectors of these and they will pay up for the right thing. I know the seller, as does the OP and there are no shill bidders on this.

 

why is that silver worth 1000 a oz

 

it is shill bidding. they are trying to scam someone. thats my final verdict.

 

A 4 ouncer is rare like you wouldn't believe. If you think the odd ball weighted Engelhard bar is expensive, you should try to find reasonable Johnson Mathey fractional bars and Chinese Panda fractional rounds. Those are pretty ridiculous too. But all in all, there is a huge collectors market on unique bars and rounds.

 

Rarity, your not buying silver your buying a seldom found 4oz bar. Why would someone pay 1.8 million for a dime it doesn't have but a few grams of silver

 

Agreed on the 4 ouncer. A few grand is nothing to some people, and if an item is rare, they will do what it takes and pay what it takes to get their hands on it. Look at rare paintings or baseball cards or that $2 mil CC dime.

really? I have a couple of 10 gram JM bars. Don't think they're very rare, last I checked pricing on ebay. Only $40 a piece or so.

 

The ten gram bars are still relatively common, but the oddball 2 gram, 5 and 20 are real tough to find at a reasonable cost. I was trying to collect these a couple years ago and ended up giving up because of hard they are to find and how pricey they get.

 

Just to play devil's advocate here not saying they are shill bidders but all those bidders have over 40% bid activity with the seller, most often than not anything over 30% IMO should set off red flags.

 

I dont think the winning bidder or the second highest bidders are shills. Yeah, their bidding % is high, but that's because all of the bids with the seller were on this item as the item's price went higher and higher.

Can't see why it's so hard to believe that a rare item will sell for a premium.

 

I would say most here consider bullion to be different than coins, and are shocked that bullion poured so recently would be considered collectible at all, let alone at these prices.

I am not saying I am one of them, just what they may be feeling.

 

40% bidding with one seller doesn't seem like that much to me. I wouldn't be concerned until it got up in the 80% range. You buy one item from a seller and decide to snag a few other items cheap so that you can combine shipping. Once you purchase and find they are a quality seller you are likely to save the seller and if they have a store you can start receiving email updates from them. .... repeat sales.

On the other hand, I have never understood why a shill bidder wouldn't just find some expensive items that have just opened and quickly put in the first 99c bid so that it shows them bidding with other sellers. Unless I am confused on how those numbers are calculated a shill bidder should be able to drop their percent with very little effort.

 

^

He could.

Normally if a bidder bids on multiple items of the same seller, that would indicate a shill account because he's pumping up various items of that seller.

But if the history shows only bidding on a single item that the seller has (in this case), then chances are smaller that it is a shill bidder. Of course, you can always get a friend to bid with their account, which wouldn't show as suspicious.

Shill bidding is a double edged sword because if you bid the item too high with the shill account, legit buyers won't overbid you, and you'd end up winning (and having to pay ebay fees). Afterwards, you'd have to cancel the transaction to get refunded on the fees. But if you do that a couple times between 2 accounts, ebay gets suspicious and suspends both accounts.

 

Camlov2,
There are many ways to get around the bid activity % but most often not high bid activity is no 1 sign (most are lazy enough not to go around doing $1 bidding) and as mentioned above seeing the same id bid on multiple actions from the same seller (and bidding higher amounts when similar coin ended for lower price). Of course the best way to know a seller is not reputable is track to see if the seller re lists the same item couple months down the road (there couple foreign coin sellers in ebay who do this)...

 

Do you believe shills bid this up and there is no real buyer for it also?

http://www.icollector.com/silver-AR...y-s-this-was-a-hot-collectible-This_i13634362

 

It could worth that much but that doesn't rule out the seller using shill bidders anyway it is quite strange it is worth that much considering there is no way to authenticate it and it wouldn't much to reproduce the exact same bar with real silver for 1/10th the price and sell it.