People pay waaaaay to much

Without having it in hand, all you really have to go by is eye appeal. The OP knew something wasn't right, he wasn't sure if it was cleaned or fake or what, but the trained eye never lies. Always trust your instinct.

 

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It comes down to a heuristic matter

 

I agree with @Numismat I just felt something was wrong by looking at it.

 

I know that some folks don't want to get tied down and forget to bid at the last moment at a particular time that may be several days away. And, although your bidding style / strategy may be comfortable to you, please note that eBay has a confluence of bidders with different personalities and bid styles. Therefore, one's optimal strategy must anticipate and account for bid war scenarios, shill bidding, etc.

That said, the best bidding strategy on eBay 80% of the time is to bid your max in the very few remaining moments of the auction. This strategy leads to less attraction to the listing from other bidders, doesn't feed into or start a bid war, and you'll have a much greater chance of winning (and at a lower price to boot). If anyone says otherwise, then they are wrong (I'd like to hear those arguments).

For the other 20% or so of auctions, you should bid your max at the beginning. These would be for high volume, competitively priced goods. These listings typically have Buy It Now (BIN) counterparts that have virtually the same prices across most sellers (which tend to be the lowest BIN prices available). That BIN price should be your max bid outright, and your expected auction end price will always be less than the BIN price, since no rational buyer will pay more than the available BIN price or should even bid the same BIN price when other BIN listings are available due to time savings. Please note that "expected" is used in accounting/economic terms, and not in the general colloquial way. Your fall back plan would be to bid or BIN a different listing.

Of course, there are exceptions (e.g. "low" BIN price attached to auctions on rarer items, in which it may be better to BIN not bid; bidiots can't be avoided, there will always be "that guy/gal"; location of seller may be a barrier, as domestic would usually be preferred over international ones). However, the above is the general strategy to follow. There are caveats for this to apply, too, such as the homogeneity of coins and their conditions, especially for older coins (in which you'd have to apply the above for a given coin grade).

Also, if it seems to be too much work to use this strategy, then by that logic one should be using highly reviewed eBay snipe programs - free versions if you can find one - since you'd be wasting more time and effort in the long run by entering low bids with infrequent wins (relatively and often absolutely). If eBay is like a treasure hunt for you and a lot of it is in the thrill of the hunt, then that's valid - window shopping can be fun...

All in all, please help others by helping yourself - make eBay cheaper for everyone else.

There is more truth to this than what many people realize. eBay directly states that a buyer's best strategy is to place one's max bid as early as possible. This is misleading - eBay's proxy bid is akin to glorified shill bidding by none other than eBay! This strategy fuels bid wars, while drawing more attention to listings that appear to have a higher bid count, as if to indirectly convey that there's something special about the item(s).

 

I normally do what you say. Watch a coin and then place my max bid in the last few minutes. But with this coin when I saw the condition I figured it would sell for maybe $30ish. I know what these coins are worth and this one isn't pretty. I honestly didn't expect it to go for a lot, especially not that high!

 

You should bid your max in the last few seconds, depending on how fast and reliable your internet connection is. And, coins tend to remain on the 80% side of auctions, esp. for older, rarer varieties. I'd err on the side of caution for most auctions. Modern sets and coins, as well as many high mintage coins, tend to have a fixed expected price, so I let loose early on those.

 

A genuine not-so-pretty or cleaned AU still goes for about 10x that when sold through a reputable dealer or auction.

 

Yep, Facebook sure does have auctions. You have to get invited by someone into a group that runs them. People post coins that they're interesting in selling, along with a starting bid and shipping quote. Anyone in the group can place a bid by commenting on the photo thread, as long as it's an increment above the previous bid.

Whenever the thread goes 24 hours without a bid, that's the close. Some sellers put a reserve by notifying a third party at the time that they start the auction.

I found out about these groups after visiting a coin shop in Ithaca. The proprietor sells his mid-grade uncommon coins or high-grade common coins this way, and he sent me an invitation. Like many things in life - it helps to know someone.

 

Well that sure is nice. how does one get initiated?

 

I'm not sure if I have invite privileges. But, from the rules thread:

"Admins can be found at this link: https://www.facebook.com/groups/298597203648789/admins"

 

I wonder if we're allowed to do that here on the sales forum... I've never sold or bought anything on CT before, but I'm thinking it'd be a great source for nice rare coins!