My Latest Auction Buy - I Think I Goofed............

Hi!
Normally I buy albums or country specific collections, but somehow got attracted to a "very large collection" offered on ebay. There were a lot of stamps displayed on cards and in glassines, etc., and looked fairly attractive.

The initial bid was $45 and to be quite honest, I was bored and needed to win an auction. So, at the last 5 minutes of the auction, I had to bid up the existing high bidder to see how high he had gone. Well, it was $91 and I won the auction. Frankly, I had mixed feelings about winning.

The package arrived today. Definitely a lot of stamps, in pretty good condition, and most are separated into glassines. The good news is that I don't see the "usual" assortments. The bad news (to me) is that there are quite a few post 1960 stamps (1960 is my end date for collecting world wide stamps).

Goodness, I have a "ton" of post 1960 worldwide stamps, and I wish I knew someone that would be interested in a bulk trade or ???

Anyway, my point is, this ol hand at ebay didn't pay attention to his preachings. So I will repeat.... If the auction isn't totally to your satisfaction, don't bid on it. And if you must bid, bid ONLY what you feel comfortable in spending.

Do as I say, not as I did............

Mobilman44

Good advice.

Of course, you can take what you want, then re-list the rest. If you get 20 or 30% of what you paid, it will bring your actual cost down to the range where you're comfortable with the expenditure.

Kirk

I have also fallen into the trap of bidding to discover the other bidder's best bid rather than bidding my own best bid. As soon as I am the high bidder, I realize that I've made a mistake ... no need to wait to open the parcel ;)

Interestingly, this never happens IRL (In Real Life). I've never looked across the room at another bidder, and raised by bid until I exhausted *his* budget. Wonder why?

My best advice, mobilman44, is to pull the stamps that you a) want and b) are unlikely to see again soon, re-list the lot with a link to its previous listing, and add the descriptor "only N stamps removed since this lot sold for ninety-one dollars!"

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

mobilman44 just out of curiosity - what was pictured in the listing that attracted you? I assume the stamps you could see were pre-1960 (was the newer stuff "hidden"?)

Hi!
The auction pics were pretty good, and about 700 or so were half visible in the various cardboard stock sheets. Most of these were pre 1960s. There were also a good 40 glassines (size 4 1/2 and 5) and that is where a lot of the post 1960 stamps seem to be.

I believe I got my monies worth, with the problem being that a good portion (perhaps 1/3) of the stamps are out of my time range. I can not fault the seller, for neither the pics or his verbiage misrepresented the auction.

I'm currently working on another auction win and when done, I'll get onto this one - keeping track of stamps needed, dups, and out of my time frame.

Like I wrote, I got carried away with the auction and if I had to do it over again, I would have walked away.

I did a similar thing recently in bidding on a "last minute entry" to a public auction. The description sounded OK, but with that kind of lot, sometimes you don't get what you hope for. I paid $650 plus commission and shipping for a lot that turns out to be worth maybe $300. A lot of the stamps are damaged and being "last minute," maybe the lot wasn't as carefully reviewed as per usual.

The best part is now having a 1901 Scott world album, albeit sparsely filled. Needs a bit of re-backing, which I can get done later. Probably the biggest value is in MNH US, singles and plate blocks, from the 1930s to 1960s, in envelopes, plus a number of revenues. The other album; also sparsely filled; is a 1930s Scott world. And there are some odds and ends of US, and a bit of foreign, on pages.

The auction house is a good one and I decided not to return the lot. But a good lesson learned is to be more distrustful of "last minute entries."

I find it's much easier to enforce bidding discipline by using a sniping service that places one bid and one bid only at the last second. Once I decide I want to bid, I enter my max bid at gixen.com and I forget about it. I win most of the time, and usually at a fair amount less than my max bid. I'd rather lose than to end up spending too much, especially considering that none of the stamps I bid on are rare - i.e. there are likely other examples for sale at any given moment or will be soon.

At least it wasn't a house or something really big hat you over-bid on or got carried awy on. Stamps are fun.

You got 2/3 of the collection 1960 and before and it's good. When you have the cat. value of these stamps maybe you will think it was a good move. About the rest you can put them on auction here. Even if you don't get much it will help a family member here. Goofy may be smarter than you think. Daniel

Hi mobilman44. An excellent post. I definitely need an occasional reminder myself. Most of the time I don't bid above my set limit, but.......sometimes!!

Thanks for the reminder! Mud

When I bid on ebay I use the sniping service Gixen. I don't have to stay glued to my computer or worry about being on line when something I want to buy is ending. I put in my high bid and am often pleasantly surprised by the price that I get items at. My most egregious enthusiastic over bids were done on the floor of public auctions. Easy to get carried away in person. Now when I bid in auctions I use Stamp Auction Network. Great website. My preference is for the live bidding that some firms offer but it is very easy to place limit bids for those that don't offer that service.

Bob

Absolutely.After discovering Gixen (at the suggestion of someone here), I rapidly changed my preferred purchase method on ebay from BIN to auctions. Yes, I have to wait a few days for the auction to close, but I'd guess I'm saving 30-40% on average vs. typical BIN prices for better stamps. I just won an auction the other day at $16.60 for a set with $122.50 cat value and the cheapest BIN was nearly double that. And my bid was placed about two hours before I woke up in the morning! Now the only time I use BIN is on cheap stamps and sets, and I do most of that over at Bidstart.