I tend to be cynical, but we live in a world where the bad news has far better PR people than the good news so we lose track of the fact that the world could not function if it was all as bad as that. The chances are overwhelming that your auction ended as I theorized in that sentence. Speaking of reality, in the real world there will always be those able to convince themselves to bid just_a_little_more in order to get that new shiny they want so badly. As a bidder who wants to be successful, you work against your own interests by leaving sufficient time after your bid for that self-deception process to play out with someone else. Don't pay a penny more than you decide is worthy - you know better than that - but don't make that bid until the last minute. If you end up winning the item for cheap, it would have gone for even cheaper - and netted the seller even less - had you not.
By private auctions do you mean an auction not on eBay or an eBay private auction? If it was eBay you most likely got sniped by a program which do do it at the last instance not a few minutes before like mentioned. If you meant a non eBay auction Dave nailed it, could have been the house bidding against you or a bid from another source. Regardless of source though if you leave a few minutes left in the auction when you enter your max bid you will just have to hope yours is higher than the other bids with that much time left.
I am amused by the characterization that buyers have necessarily overpaid if they outbid someone who loses an item after placing what they figured to be a fair bid. Many times those bidders may have lost to a specialist in die varieties, to a fellow collector who may know more about the availability of that item in a specific grade, or to a dealer having earmarked that coin for a good customer. The term "overpaid" is often abused, as it is a relative term, and not an absolute, much the same as is the term "underpaid". I can't count the number of times I have been told that someone underpaid when they bought a roll of common wheaties for $1.00, a common silver certificate for $3.00 or a common proof set for 10% back of bid. Such items are ubiquitous, and have established values only because there are a very large number of transactions on which to base a price. The prices in guides are built on a history of what people have been willing to pay in the past, and have been reported. Less common items, for which transaction history can be sparse, and between which a variation in quality can be far more meaningful to the buyers, may fetch multiples of the "going rate" for a particularly nice coin, and even for an ugly coin that only comes available every several years. We would all do well not to jump to the conclusion that, simply because someone bid well beyond the published price for a given item, that they have necessarily overpaid.
There are exceptions though. If it's a homogeneous product with many, many items already available, then it's best to bid the competitive price at the very beginning. Even though you could just Buy It Now at a competitive price for homogeneous goods, you have a chance at paying less than the Buy It Now price. You bid early instead of last second because the price is practically guaranteed to reach the competitive price, and the first buyer to bid that price wins. So for instance, if there are thousands of a given year's proof sets up for sale, there will be a competitive price. In that case, your maximum bid is the competitive price. If say, the proof sets are sold at $10, other buyers see the auction price and see that they sold for $10 and are available for $10 from other sellers now. Buyers will want to buy it for less so they have every incentive to bid up to $10. If they bid incrementally and it gets up to $9.50, the next bid amount will be $10 and there's no longer as luring an incentive to bid $10 (though some do), and they'll evacuate to another auction of the same item but at a cheaper current bid price. With rare coins or numismatics in general, this situation applies less in my opinion.
You bring up a very good point. You always hear about how no two coins are equal and to buy what you like but as soon as someone pays up for a coin they love or a superior example they have all of a sudden overpaid because another one sold for less. If all coins are not created equally why do we expect them all to be priced based off the lowest sales or common ones?
I am wondering... Maybe I have outbid some CoinTalk members on Ebay in the past! .. I only bid on Mint Errors, does anyone else?
Folksy as always, but in this case, you've got it exactly backwards. When you set a snipe, you ARE placing your max bid -- you just aren't disclosing it to anyone attempting to bid against you. (Yes, your early high bid is also secret, but every bid against you discloses whether your max is higher or lower than that amount.) If the final seconds of the auction are driven by snipes, then there isn't any "bidding frenzy", because there's no time for emotion to drive people to bid higher. And how can the winning bid be "a good bit higher than anybody ever expected"? Each participant set their maximum bid. That's pretty much the definition of stating an expectation. If, in contrast, you place your maximum bid early, some excitable person can keep bidding against you until they exceed your maximum -- and then somebody else can feel compelled to outbid them, and so on. It provides more opportunity for emotion to drive the bidding higher. Naturally, eBay wants to encourage this, because it also maximizes their FVF income. Equally naturally, more and more bidders have caught on, and bought out of the psychological game.
You will always lose 100% of the time, if the max bid on the sniping program is higher than yours. (Getting back to the OP Bid Piracy) I have noticed there are off peak times, when interest is low. And if something on your watch list has zero bids, by putting in your bid late, you are likely to win, and get it at a bargain price. Anything that has a number of bidders competing, you are never going to win at a fair price. (Which is fine, you don't want to be in a bidding frenzy and overpay.) I've gotten some things at a very good price, some things at a fair price and a couple of things I have over paid. All part of the game I guess. I have stopped using EBay because the last item I bought, the seller used deceptive photos. I'm not going to bother returning a 9 dollar item. Caveat emptor. I just don't like being taken advantage of. I never would have bid on this item had I seen the actual photos and not the deceptive photos which made the note look much less worn and creased than the reality.
If I see a coin I'd like to have if I can get it at a good price I'll put in an early max bid if I know I won't be actively watching the final minutes of the auction on my smartphone or computer. If I really want a coin, I'll be actively watching the auction until it's over. As others have posted, no two coins are alike so what's really the value of a coin; what someone is willing to pay for it.
It's pretty easy actually - - because not everybody sets their maximum bid, they set some number they pull out of the air just so they can beat the other guy with 1 more bid. And because in the closing seconds or fractions of seconds there are multiple users each using a sniping program and each one is trying to outbid all the others. Point being the bid may jump by several multiples all within the last second. There might be 50 bids placed in the last few seconds - by the programs. Jeff, over the years we've had a quite a few stories related here on the forum where a member who wanted to win, basically no matter what, would put in a bid that was outrageous, never expecting the bid to get anywhere near the max he set. But because of the sniping programs competing against each other - it did. What I said about a coin that was only worth a couple hundred ending up costing a couple thousand - that was not an exaggeration. The true point I'm trying to make with my comments is forget about ebay. It is a rare occasion that you cannot find a coin just as nice as the one on ebay for less money elsewhere. With all the sniping and nonsense that goes on it's just not worth it. Live auctions, where one person has to outbid another, they work, because it's a real person against a real person, with an auctioneer calling the win. They wouldn't work either (and by that I mean they'd be just like ebay) if it was software programs doing bidding.
What's wrong with it (at least on eBay) is that people can use fake accounts to up the bid increment by increment in order to find out what your max bid is, and then they just cancel their bid. If you're not actively watching the auction while they do this, you won't even know it happened. Then they can place a targeted bid to snipe you under their main account, as once they know your maximum you have played your hand. Alternatively, if they don't want to outbid you, they can just put in a max bid that's the same as yours, and make you pay as much as possible. Not a bad strategy if you're competing with them on the same coins, as draining your monetary resources is to their advantage.
For this quoted paragraph, if someone who "wanted to win, basically no matter what" ends up paying a couple thousand for a couple hundred dollar coin then they did exactly what they sought to do: win no matter what. If they weren't willing to win it for a couple thousand then there's no other way to put it they are complete idiots for setting their max bid where they did assuming it could never get there. That's not an issue with snipers, it's 100% an issue with a buyer flat out acting irresponsibly and dumb.
Just so you know, meaning aware; we have actually had people post here on the forum describing exactly what I described - and asking how they could get out of honoring their bid. edit - was what they did stupid ? Without a doubt. But that doesn't change the fact that they do it.
You can always message the seller asking for more pics. If you buy a coin with bad pics in an attempt to get a bargain, that risk is on you. I've gotten some of my very best coins from eBay, some at absolutely insane bargains. I've also made contacts with many dealers abroad through eBay that I may not have found otherwise. Ebay is a great resource if you use it carefully.
I would agree with your comments. But there's a big caveat in there - you HAVE to know what you are doing. Sadly, most ebay buyers do not.
Right I'm not disputing that it happens. I'm just saying the blame should fall squarely on those individuals for being so irresponsible. 1. You should never want to win something no matter what (unless you are in the 1% of the 1% of the 1% of coin collectors and it's a 1 of a kind coin that you literally will pay any amount to have) - it just takes one other person with a similar feeling and boom you pay 10x what you should instead of just passing and 2. Ebay is simple, you will never pay more than you are willing unless you get careless. Put your max bid in as close to the end of the auction as possible and hope for the best.
So your claim is actually "placing a rational bid early is better than sniping with an irrational bid." I won't argue with that. I will argue with the assumption that people using a sniping service are fools who routinely place unrealistic maximum bids. Fools who place excessive bids will overpay, whether they place them early or late -- unless, having placed their ridiculous bid early, they draw out someone else willing to place an even more ridiculous bid. ("Look at that blurry-photo quarter-eagle that's bid up to $3K! It must be a 1911-D; that other bidder must have a better screen than I do.") The hunt for "rare occasions" drives an awful lot of this hobby. Chance favors the prepared; using a sniping service (wisely) is one effective preparation tool.
Didn't realize the pictures were bogus till after I received the note. My experiences up till that point had more honesty and integrity. If he was using deceptive photography in his auction, he's not going to send me photos which reveal all the creases and wear in the note. I left negative feedback, and told him I felt cheated. Never heard back. Let him live with stealing 9 dollars from me.
Jeff I'm not arguing the point that there are people who use sniping programs in a responsible manner, and place responsible bids. Of course there's people like that. But it only takes 1 or 2 bidiots to screw it all up. And there's usually a whole lot more than 1 or 2. Ebay used to be a wonderful venue, I used to buy and sell coins there all the time. And it still can be for those who really know what they are doing. But for the average Joe, ebay has become a minefield. Worse than a minefield even because there's sharks out there in the weeds just waiting for you to come along.
What I'm not understanding is the "it only takes 1 or 2 bidiots to screw it all up." part. Screw what up? Whether there are bidiots or not the fact remains the same that if you have a max bid set you will never pay more than that. You just won't win every auction which I would hope everyone doesn't expect to do. And I'm not sure how ebay still isn't a fine venue. It's just like a LCS, Pawn Shop, Heritage, Stacks/Bowers, Live Auctions...they offer coins you may have interest in and if so you try to obtain them at a price you're comfortable with. I probably win 5% of auctions I have interest in on ebay and I still love it. If I overpay for something it's either voluntarily because it's worth it to me or it's my own screw up, not anyone elses or ebays fault.
