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Claude,
I am not saying this approach would necessarily be best for you personally.
In some cases it might not --although if you were one of the Deep Pocket people
competing for a very desirable poster that you wanted very badly, wouldn't
you appreciate the opportunity to continue bidding on it if it turned out
that your own snipe bid was NOT the highest snipe submitted at the auction's
close?
But you could still keep people from knowing you are interested in any
given item by placing a sniper bid. It would work just like it did before,
being kept secret until the very end and then played against any other
last-second incoming bids. If the auction were extended for a minute or two,
your snipe bid would continue to be automatically played against any bids
submitted during the extended time. So, as far as staying incognito until the
very end and not having to be there personally to increment your bid, nothing
would change. The only difference would be that other bidders would have a
chance to trump your last bid. They would not necessarily be successful,
depending on how high your sniper bid was, but they would get a chance to so for
a minute or two. Yes, during that last minute or two they would be able to see
your user name -- but that isn't going to be available long enough for those few
people you are concerned about to find out that it is you bidding on an item
-- unless they already happen to be bidding on it themselves. In that case,
well, Claude, that is why it is called an "auction" after all.
I did respond to your question about the confusion you feel this would
cause for someone like Bruce with 1,000 auctions closing on the same night. I
said you will have to ask him to get the best answer. He's in favor of the idea
and I have to assume he's considered this aspect. My own opinion on it is that
it wouldn't change very much the way things are now with Bruce's auctions. As it
is now, many of his items close virtually simultaneously or within a minute or
two of each other. It is impossible to do very much jumping around and
bidding manually from one to another during the close. You have to rely on
sniper bids to place bids on multiple items for you if you're waiting until
the close to bid. You could still do the same with extended end times, the only
difference being that there would be a slightly greater possibility that someone
who has the chance to trump your last bid in the extended time might do so. But
you can still protect against losing the item with your usual technique of
placing a very high sniper bid -- one which most people aren't going to be able
to beat, even during the extended end time.
You may end up paying a little more for the poster, but you would still win
it.
In the end, isn't this possibility what you are really objecting to about
the concept?
-- JR
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, June 16, 2005 6:14
Subject: Re: [MOPO] Beat The Clock or
Beat the Crook?
JR
Peter is right on target and you are definitely wrong here. You
must acknowledge that besides a blindsided bid in the last few seconds,
sniping does something for me that is an absolute must. That is the fact
that it keeps all persons from knowing that I want the poster (or statue which
I also collect).
There are certain bidders who are quite well known to have deep pockets
and when they bid on certain genre posters you know they will go high.
People all over the world know that I collect Charlie Chan posters and there
are very few that I do not own. I was seeking the one sheet of Charlie
Chan in Honolulu for the last 15 years without even knowing what it looked
like and lo and behold it popped up on ebay about two months ago. Toler
made 22 films and I had 21 one sheets for the longest time. There are
Charlie Chan posters on ebay daily but not what I need. If the
auction did not end in the fashion you want I would have been in
deep trouble because if people saw me bidding they would know I wanted it
badly and just keep bidding me up. i placed a snipe bid well above the
final price of $5250 and I can only imagine what would have occurred had
my name popped up in the last few seconds to the other bidders. It
happened to me once in an auction and I vowed that it would never happen again
which is why I only bid in the last few seconds regardless of the cost of
the poster.
I also collect statues and never bid on them except in the last few
seconds because there is a guy out on the coast whom I outbid on a few statues
he wanted and now tries to bid me up on every rare statue.
I haven't even touched shill bidding which was well covered by
Peter.
YOU DID NOT COVER A SUBJECT I MENTIONED IN MY LAST EMAIL AND I WOULD LIKE
YOU TO COMMENT ON IT. I stated that in live auctions lots are placed on
the bidding table one at a time and until the hammer comes down, regardless of
how long the auction goes on, the next item for auction is not placed on the
table. You are trying to simulate a live auction but items are not held
up on ebay and doled out one at a time. Bruce Hershenson places
about 1000 items a week and the end approximately 1 to 2 minutes apart.
You can easily glide from one ending to another and track and bid on posters
in a smooth stream. Under your method these 1000 items could be kept
alive and overlap each other with as many as 20 items being bid on
simultaneously (by me) with 60 second endings depending on additional
bids to keep them going. How will you prevent such chaos? How in
the world can you equate a live auction process (one at a time) with thousands
on ebay? I would like to read your reply.
Claude
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