P3D Re: eBay bidding (with 3D tie-in)

[michaelk@xxxxxxxxxxx (Michael Kersenbrock)]

> >If your bid is higher than the sniper's then ebay will re-bid
> >almost *instantaneously* in your behalf!!!  You're faster than a
> >sniper if you actually put in a max-bid higher than the sniper's!
> 
> Problem is you'll never get this far by bidding your maximum bid
> early.

True, but ONLY if someone else is willing to pay more than you
wanted to.  

Problem is that if "sniping" were somehow outlawed, the snipers
don't go away, they just bid earlier and STILL higher than
the formerly "snipe'd" wanted to pay (for his/her great deal).

> Yes but as I mentioned before...
> It is a level playing field for ALL bidders in a live auction. Not
> the case in an ebay auction.

Everybody can bid during the week, everybody has equal chance
to bid at the end.  Seems pretty level to me.  One can say
"well, I'm not available to be online at the end of the auction"
and that's true, but one might not be able to attend a live
auction either where somebody is able to -- so do live auctions 
have an equally unlevel field too?

> The best winning strategy is bid your maximum bid (whatever that is)
> at the end. Mike you mentioned you snipe sometimes (or often?). Why,
> if it is not a good strategy? :-)

I didn't say it wasn't effective, I only mean that if I lose to a snipe
that it doesn't bother me because the sniper has bid more than I
was willing to spend.  Note that although I might bid within the
last minute or two, I'm bidding my max bid *then*.  So it's a matter
of when I put in my maximum acceptable bid (for the most part) rather
than trying to maintain a lowball bid at the end and being upset with the
system that my attempt to obtain a "steal" was stolen from me
by a last minute bidder. I've also won many ebay auctions where I bid 
early and it lasted days to the end (and sometimes been a "bargain").

In the end, the one who bid highest wins -- no matter how that
highest was deterimined.  If someone bid less than they REALLY
were willing to bid, then they have to live with the results
of their own actions.  They could have bid more, but didn't. I've
bid on many near the end, but the prior long-time bidder had a bid
higher that I was willing to go.  This probably is the most common
situation. 

The ONLY way for someone to win an auction from me is for them
to bid higher than I'm willing to, and they can do it anytime
during the entire auction.

Although this hasn't been directly 3d'ish, I'll mention that just
today I got an ebay package in the mail which was 3D related (as are
probably half of my ebay purchases, which include a couple purchases
from Harry Poster).

I got today a couple dozen slides (albeit mostly of the faded 50's
style of slides) of which most are "beamsplitter" 3D slides!  Mostly
of the... er... 50's pinup variety.  :-)

Seemed quite "different" to me.  Although I've seen many realist format
slides from the 50's around, not many beamsplitter ones (before these)
other than the "sample" that comes with stereo-tach units.

I thought the price was quite good too (and were won with far advanced 
high bidding which had large margins at the auction end).  :-)

Mike K.


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