I am new to collecting and was bidding on a roll of pre 1964 Washington Quarters on e-bay (nothing special regular quarters) I was going to give them to my son and his friends. Near the end of the auction things got really really stupid. I could go to a coin dealer and get a roll for less than the price of this roll you would have thought they were proofs. This has happened several times. Is this normal? Should I just look somewhere else. I don't want any great coins just something to get the kids interested in coins?
They are called bidiots. Maybe even shill bidders. You have to be careful not to get caught up in auction fever. Try a dealer or online site. You may have better luck with buffalo nickels and wheat cents as they look different than the ones we have now.
Ebay is like a casino. Sometimes you get killer deals, other times, the prices people pay absolutely shock you. I would keep looking. Just set a limit for yourself that you won't go above. That way you don't get caught up in auction fever. After hearing this, I think I might put some of my junk silver up to bid!!:goofer:
I just wanted some junk coins to give to the kids I did set a limit and that's what kept me from bidding. Thanks for the help. Ice
I hate waiting 2 or 3 days just for something to sky rocket in the last hour or last cpl minutes. I'm done with ebay for awhile. What I have won there was a good deal but it's almost more stressful than it's worth imo. Lucky for me I found some good folks here that have helped me find some of the coins I'm looking for or have even let me in on some tools you can use to search ebay sellers before you decide to bid. Seems like alot of people are trying to "get rich quick" on ebay these days, which like anything else, ruins it for the good guys selling there.
I just set the max i am willing to pay for a certain coin, put that price in, and if I don't win I don't sweat it. I probably lose 75% of my bids, but the ones I win I'm happy with. There is almost always someone willing to pay more for something than you are.
I think that is just the nature of any auction. I bid on various coins on Ebay - Research coin, Bid and set Max Bid. Then develop attitude of take it or leave it. Bet the sellers are frustrated with this also. Seen Coin A sell for $5.00 and the same coin by Seller B sell for $0.99. Often I'll find more than one of the same coin for sell by different sellers, I'll bid on one and put the other on my watch list. Lose the bid on the first and jump over to the second. Losing the bid is part of the game.
Which is why I'm a last second bidder. If you put in your high bid and it barely beats somebody with an hour to go, you're going to lose 9 out of 10 times. If you give people time to think about it, somebody will always put a bid in to beat you. If you save your high bid for the end, it's like a last second shock. No time to think about it or consider bidding higher.
I think eBay sellers get their pricing info from things like the Red Book, Coin Trends or the PCGS site. The Red Book is ridiculous source for prices. They are 6-12 months out of date by the time they're published. And although Coin Trends and PCGS are more timely, there's still significant lag while they research recent results in order to justify pricing changes. And I suspect the greysheet is only slightly better. But at least it's a bit more realistic. I don't know how many recent results one of these publications needs before they adjust their figures (5? 10?). But for many coins you may not get enough sales/auction results for a date/mintmark/grade combo in a year. Go back through your pricing guides, pick some coins and see how often the price changes (No, not 1909-SVDB or 1916-D since they are high volume coins. Pick a bit more common date.) BOTTM LINE: Many sellers are quoting pre-economic crisis prices. Then they wonder why they can't sell.
