Are you ever happy you get outbid?

So my father was in the hospital over the weekend in Iowa, and I was there with him. I was cruising Ebay of course, placing bids, (which is totally unlike me, I usually snipe). So I bid on a lot that looked pretty good from my phone, bidding nearly $200. Of course, Monday when I looked at the lot I was wondering what the HECK was I thinking. I was the high bidder all of the way, with the auction ending this morning. Luckily someone sniped me, letting me off the hook. Whew.

Anyone else ever make a mistake bidding, hoping and praying someone even dumber than you will come along to let you off the hook?

I learned my lesson, no more bidding period. If I cannot snipe it, I will not bid on Ebay, (especially from my phone).

 

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Many times!

 

Yep, been there a few times. Like today.

 

I'd say about 3-5 times since ive been on ebay, and thats since the year 2000. But I havent had any experiences like this in about 2 years.

Im selective & cheap as it is.

 

It's happened a couple of times, bidding for Greeks. I wanted representative examples of certain types, but the ones I could afford didn't look that great. I was stretching the budget to acquire coins that probably wouldn't have wowed me in hand. Nowadays if I have the itch to spend some money and I'm not impressed by any auction offerings, I buy a book or an offprint that keeps me reading for a week, and out of trouble.

 

There have been many times I have been happy to be outbid. It was bad for awhile when I was checking ebay on the bus and making random bids. Now I don't touch ebay unless I am selling or checking my favourite sellers which is basically down to 3 or 4 people now. I have much more control trolling auction houses where the starting bid is $45 or $60.

Most of those mistakes are now at new homes and I am generally getting exactly back what I paid for them.

 

I'm often disappointed when outbid because of being unable to use the funds to buy earlier coins in the sale. The same occurs when I buy a coin very cheaply, as sometimes it would mean I skipped bidding on earlier coins to wait for that one... buying them at a discount is a good problem to have but still irritating to have missed out on other opportunities.

 

However, after the sting of being outbid wears off and some time passes with the next auction being posted, all is reset. I would have not been able to make several of my recent purchases had I won a large coin earlier this year. There's always an opportunity cost.

 

Hope that your dad is doing OK.
Thanks for sharing the experience & happy to learn that you didn't get this particular lot.

I don't buy on Ebay often but have lost more than a few. I sometimes catch myself in the role of the fox in Aesop's sour grapes fable. When I loose a coin auction, that is when I realize that the coin was probably rusty & bent or otherwise not worthy of having it in my collection. Yep, those grapes were probably sour anyway.

 

BTW, a few weeks ago I had an auction experience that cured me of coin collecting for a while. I did a stupid stupid thing that just made be forget about coin collecting for some time.

I spotted an early USA silver dollar in a beautiful state of preservation. For about a month, I researched the coin & saved-up the funds to buy it. It was the primary coin that I wanted out of four coins in the auction. I checked the closing time of the coin(s) and set my alarm to place my bid(s) either by Bidnapper or personally. When the alarm sounded, I went to the dollar lot & saw “Sold”. It was listed & sold in a previous session. I wrongfully assumed that the dollar (for which I planned for a month) was in the same session as the other three coins. There was no way to fool my brain into thinking it was bent or rusted. My brain knows that the coin was perfect for me & I just blew it big-time. I was really sad for a while. It wasn’t until one of the other coins arrived 10-days later that I regained my appetite for coin collecting.

Thanks for letting me rant.

 

Probably more often I hope I get outbid and I don't. This often happens when I just don't pay enough attention and I read something wrong, like I need a 5 cents of a certain date and bid on the 10 cents instead. No one ever seems to save me from those.

 

This is such a good post, glad you brought it up. Whenever I bid on eBay, I go through an almost psychotic episode of second guessing myself. If I am winning I am angry because I think I bid too much (and am the sucker), and if I am losing I am mad because I hate to lose. And nothing makes me madder than losing by like one dollar! Makes me think I should have bid just a wee bit higher. The whole experience leaves me exhausted.

@ medoraman - sorry to hear about your dad in the hospital, hope he gets to feeling better soon!

 

A few times, especially when sometime afterwards I find a different coin that I end up wanting more than the first coin.

 

So....., I 'm not the only one out there with this problem.

 

Oh you betcha, Chris. Like the time I was bidding on an Old Spanish Trail Commem and had one bourbon too many when I pulled the trigger. Luckily some poor devil pulled my bacon out of the fire at the last second.

[edit to add] Hope Dad's feeling better.....

 

While I agree with the relief felt when someone saved me from my bidding error, I differ from most of you in another way. I still feel the pain of a couple very specific coins I lost many years ago. The oldest that retains a place in my guilt banks was in the later 1980's when a seller and I could not agree on a price so I let a coin go. The next month I saw him again and had decided to pay his price but the coin was sold. I still remember that coin and believe now as I did then that no one in his right mind would want the thing. I know I would recognize it if I saw it again.

That brings up the question of how many times a coin might be expected to sell in a lifetime and how likely we are to ever see a specific coin again. When I sold most of my coins in 1974 I did not plan on caring if I ever saw them again. I have images of most of those coins and have yet to recognize even one showing up in a sale. Some of them I would buy for what the coin is, and, some I would buy just because it was once mine. I may have seen one or two of the less distinctive ones and not recognized them but I do wonder and care what happened to at least some of them. There are many examples of some of these coins but I would prefer to be reunited with the ones I had before the 1974 mistake.

 

Yep

 

I'm like that on over half my bids lol. I've missed out on some which I regret, but missed out on more that I'd regret if I had won.

 

And luckily, there are plenty of those on eBay, lol.