Ebay is so frustrating

clickklick · Feb 1, 2015

I've been anticipating auction end on a rad Davis pipe. I put in my bid with 10 seconds left. I was high bidder and right at the last second I was outbid. Is everyone using esnipe services? For crying out loud. What a letdown. This was going to be my 3rd tadpole, I bid over an extra 80 from what my 10 second winning bid was thinking that would be plenty. I don't know if eBay is worth the frustration. Golden birthday present to myself is now just a bitter leftover regret. Grrrr. I wish they let you see the winners so I could email them and offer to buy it from them lol.
Oh well. Thanks for letting me rant.

Chasing Embers · Feb 1, 2015

We feel your pain. Out of all my ebay wins, I have had more get away.

sablebrush52 · Feb 1, 2015

I never consider something won until I get the notice from eBay. Yes, a lot of people are using esnipe and other tools, or are just manually sniping. Since so many are now doing this there's no real advantage. Auctions are just shoot outs at the end, often with snipers placing high bids because there is so much competition. Items still go for the top bid. eBay isn't a place to find bargains. It's a place to find items that are difficult or unlikely to find anywhere else.

clickklick · Feb 1, 2015

I'm a self proclaimed rad collector. So my scope is narrow. There aren't many shapes that come by in his tadpole/squashed tomato variety. Man. Just kicking myself.

clickklick · Feb 1, 2015

It was valued properly. I keep up on the market. My own fault.

easterntraveler · Feb 1, 2015

That is ebay. All is fair in love and war.

Chasing Embers · Feb 1, 2015

Could probably get Rad to a commissioned piece.

pipebaum81 · Feb 1, 2015

Just a suggestion, establish what the piece is worth to you and bid. Leave it be. If it goes over the amount you are comfortable with than you have lost nothing. It just was out of what you were willing to spend. Pipes are a commodity just like anything else. If you want a Hershey bar you won't pay over 2 or 3 dollars. If someone wants it for more you will let them have it no questions asked. If these items are "worth" a certain amount to you than make the bid and put your money down. As long as someone out there wants it more than you are willing to actually bid you will miss the item.

iamn8 · Feb 1, 2015

While frustrating this is why I love eBay and why wins are so satisfying!! The best deals on the net are still on eBay! When I bought my Rasmussen from Roderigo, he told me it should sell for not over $800. Had I purchased it from an online retailer, it would've sold for around $2500+. I take those two numbers and decide what premium I'm willing to pay to own it and bid that number. In my experience this is the only way to play and not feel burned or dissatisfied. Win some and lose some, supply v demand, and other such basic fundamental rules of economics are at play in their purest form on eBay. What great fun!

iamn8 · Feb 1, 2015

I'd heard from someone whose screename escapes me that Rad no longer took commissions, but he coulda been wrong.

sablebrush52 · Feb 1, 2015

It's not a fault thing. eBay attracts all kinds of bidders, some of whom don't care what the market value is. You could have bid twice as much and still lost. Such bidders just want the item at any price. I just bid (and was outbid) on a Barling pipe with a 1941 hallmark. I really wanted that pipe as a companion to my 1941 Sasieni 8 Dot, but not at any price.
Before I bid, I looked at the bid history and at the buying history of the top bidders. The guy in the lead at the time, who won the pipe by the way, buys a variety of memorabilia from that period and has a fair number of wins. I've seen this type of collector before. What this tells me is that he doesn't care about market prices and that he'll bid a high amount to get what he wants. He doesn't care what others bid it up to. There are a lot of buyers like him on eBay.
Though I suspected that it was a futile gesture given his buying type, I also figured nothing ventured, nothing gained, and I put in a slightly higher bid than I felt that I really wanted to spend. Sure enough his automatic bid was higher. The pipe went for close to $100 more than I bid, with one more bidder trying to get that pipe. I suspect that it could have gone for a couple of hundred more and that gonzo collector would still have walked away with that pipe.

pipebaum81 · Feb 1, 2015

I think it is important to remember that Ebay IS an auction house. I've had a seller tell me otherwise, that it is a store front for sellers to establish and guide market value. Unless all your items are "Buy Now" only I still disagree. The environment sable just outlined defines a healthy auction floor. It's why things go to auction, right? Because the seller perceives an item to be potentially worth more than what the sticker price should say. Add in the climate of the finite timed sale and the "I must win" mentality and you get the item elevated to frenzy levels. Does anyone think that an auction was established for bidders to barter down the price with the seller to get a good deal? It's the exact opposite.

iamn8 · Feb 1, 2015

Early on I made a goal to locate a Dunhill from my fathers birth year of 1944, not thinking it through enough to realize how difficult this would be. It took daily searches to find one and it's the only 1944 I've seen then or since. It went under the radar due to a misspelling. I'd have paid 3x what I ended up paying. If I had, there most certainly would've been talk of the crazy price it went for. You never know what's behind people's motivations. If there'd been two of us vying for it... Who knows.

pipebaum81 · Feb 1, 2015

+10 iamn8

xrundog · Feb 1, 2015

If you are going to bid on competitive pipe brands, a sniper is really the best way. Set your snipe bid up and walk away. I win maybe 20% of the pipes I bid on. Maybe less. If there's one you really want, you have to go high.

buroak · Feb 1, 2015

xrundog, Which snipe service/app do you use? I only recently became aware of these. Like sablebrush52, I think sniping has less utility than in the past, but I still see a couple of benefits.

sablebrush52 · Feb 1, 2015

The best deals on the net are still on eBay! When I bought my Rasmussen from Roderigo, he told me it should sell for not over $800. Had I purchased it from an online retailer, it would've sold for around $2500+.

True, but there's also the most risk. With an online dealer you can return the pipe if there's an issue that went unnoticed, and with a B&M you can hold the pipe in your hands before you commit. I've happily bought from Rodrigo and I've also sent pipes back that turned out to have serious flaws that he didn't catch. Luckily he's a stand up seller, but not all are.
eBay is the Wild West and you can get screwed if the seller doesn't care what you or eBay thinks. They close one account and open another. Also, with some of the very high priced Danish carvers there are Chinese made fakes floating around on eBay and the sellers don't appear to know the fakes from the real thing. I still remember that fake Nordh that sold for $8300. A couple of carvers were alerted and they declared "their" pipes fakes. That seller was putting up a number of fakes, got called on it by Marty Pulvers, and the seller admitted to having done that as "an experiment". Totally bizarre, and despite which, he's still selling on eBay. So much for eBay's policies toward protecting consumers.
Of course, I play in a different part of the collecting arena, with pipes that are often older than some members' grandparents. There are a lot more variables to consider in that part of the market. With eBay it's caveat emptor.

iamn8 · Feb 1, 2015

I understand sable but sorta disagree. So long as you buy from a repudible dealer who accepts returns, there is zero danger. Go outside of this basic rule and it's the Wild West, but if you follow that rule it's quite a refined experience. I'm not as experienced as sable but Ive never had anything resembling a problem. If I did, the seller accepts returns and eBay backs you up, so long as it's a reputable dealer who accepts returns.

forest7 · Feb 1, 2015

Only 1% I could win in ebay from I'v been watched or bidding.

Well only I got to do is watching again and again.

On lucky day almost new dunhill made large savory's bent billiard got at $30.

Sometime it happen, so if there is what I want put into watching list and keep watching ebay.

daveinlax · Feb 1, 2015

It hard to take a lose when you're hunting the right pieces for the collection but the you'll have money when the next perfect piece is listed. 8O

Ebay is so frustrating

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