A while back I auctioned off a patch on a neckerchief for the TMR Museum. The item in question, was an unlisted Oratam P1 variety on a neckerchief.
I had a email exchange with an Oratam collector who said
At first when I saw the price I thought you had a pair of really big ones or was just plain CRAZY. But now I must admit that I was wrong.
He thought my minimum bid was way out of the ballpark and I explained a bit of my thought process on the issue and how I determined the price. He also had some comments on sniping on eBay. My reply…
Your entitled to your opinion of course, but I suspect the 484P will go for well over $ 100 (maybe close to $ 200 ). It is my job as a seller to maximize the return on an item, particularly as this was donated to the TMR Museum and the proceeds will go to them.
First neither the Tracker Software nor oaimages lists a price for this item (or any P1 or P2). This means that none were sold by the major dealers who contributed pricing to Tracker and none sold on eBay (at least properly identified) over the past couple of years. So it is at least uncommon. Most older Pies and other odd-shapes, were generally produced in low quantities and are becoming difficult to find.
Plus when I showed it to a major NJ OA Collector I was offered $ 75 on the spot for it.
There are multiple people watching it, and at least one person has told me he plans to snipe. We will see what happens.
As for sniping, as a seller I’d prefer to see bidding early and often to drive the price up. The reality is, eBay allows sniping, since any user can follow another’s bidding through the search function, it makes sense to me as a buyer to conceal my intentions for as long as possible. There are other NYS OA collectors who bid on the same items I do. Should I risk showing my hand particularly when an item is not well described or one item pictured in a pile of ” various miscellaneous scout patches?” It could wind up costing me considerably more.
Besides a sniper will never beat me unless he is willing to spend more than me. When I place a final bid, it is the maximum I’m willing to spend on an item at that time. If I think an item is worth a maximum of $ 50 and only bid $ 25 and I get sniped at $ 26 it is my fault not the snipers. If I get beat at $ 51, it was more than I was willing to spend and the sniper is entitled to it. For all I know, the snipers could have been willing to go $ 100 but it will only show one bump above my maximum.
By the way, the starting price was $ 74. 99 and it went for nearly $ 180 .00, with 2 different snipes in the last 15 seconds.
[phpbay]Oratam Lodge,10[/phpbay]
So what did the piece go for? You deliberately left out the starting bid and closing price.
John,
Don’t know what the problem was, nothing looked funny with the code. All of the amounts after the $ sign do not appear. If I add a space between the $ and the number they all appear. Hmmn…