When you lose an auction lot by one notch … grrrr.

I never participate in an auction, saves a good deal of grief and potential over paying. I enjoy eBay, I just avoid the auction and look only at buy it now or best offer. You can hate this or that, but that just affects you and elicits no sympathy.

 

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How do you know that he dishonored the bid?
It most likely was a shill bidder and then the lister of the coin didn't get the other
guy to bite. Ebay is a disgrace.

 

When I saw it relisted I messaged the seller asking him about it. He told me the guy didn't pay. I messaged to make him an offer which was my original top bid. Which was what the coin was worth. He declined. So I didn't bid on the auction the second time and it sold for around a hundred less than I offered him. Bet he wished he would have sold it to me.

 

Several years ago on fee bay, I got a few "Second Chance offers" on some antique items (not coins) that I had bid on from some different sellers. I suspected they had shill bidders who had actually "won" the auction, and of course no money there, so within minutes, I had these offers. The sellers all said the original could not pay, or some such. I refused all the offers. What hogwash.

 

I'm not too familiar with these auction houses like Heritage, but I've heard they engage in shill bidding to drive up prices.

 

At least eBay has rules that forbid shill bidding, but we know some crooked sellers engage in it . Enforcement seems lacking

 

They are not consistent with their own rules. It's a sham.
They only care about money.

 

There might be rules, but they are easily broken. When I was a dealer, other dealers asked me to bid on their eBay lots. “You won’t have to buy it if you win.” I declined to do that.

 

The definition of market is just over what the second bidder is willing to pay. If you're consistently losing out then you're not willing to pay market.

You can take all the price guides you can find manipulate the numbers and come up with what you think it's worth and that's a meaningless number..

 

GC continues to grow and finding deals seems harder with each year. Some generic items slip through occasionally but anything with great toning tends to get bid up strongly. In some series you need to go 10x or more to win a premium toner.

 

I just move on. Disappointed of course. Possibly I would have had to win a bid war.

But feel your pain in missing out on item you wanted.

 

I prefer to buy coins, tokens and medals from dealers. Even I pay more, which I'm not convinced that I am doing in all cases, I've got the item without going though a darn auction.

I hate auctions. You do all the research and monitoring, and in the end one person, who will pay any price to get the item, knocks you out. Some of these people wouldn't pay as much to a dealer to buy the same item outright via private treaty.

 

Different strokes. Most of my coins, except for very recent issues, are bought at auctions. I have to do the price research either way. I often see dealers in in auction viewing rooms. And I see coins that have recently sold at auction in dealers’ inventories at considerable mark-up. Yeah, it is work, but enjoyable work, to keep watching for coins going up for auction. Some auction houses, like Heritage, make it easy via online want lists. I get ample notice when a coin on my list comes up for auction.

Cal

 

You don't see how high they were willing to go, just that their value is over yours.


If you pre-bid $9.99, and I bid $500, it sells on the increment at $10.

 

Auctions work for dealers because they are open to buying anything within their area of business that is attractively priced. Most collectors have a much narrower focus.

Auctions are often the places to buy the tough stuff. They are not the place to buy widgets.

 

It can hurt but the winner could have put in really high bid.