This Is How I Feel After Being Outbid On Esties.

[79spitfire]

I typically don't bid on auctions on Ebay any more, If I am willing to pay "full bore" for a pen (or anything else for that matter) then taking the risk of paying that money and receiving a dud, I'll just buy it from a trusted vendor, face to face, or one of the "Buy it Now"s, again from a trusted vendor.

 

the rare occasions when I am bidding on an auction, it's to get a bargain. OK so I tend to get out bid, and usually feel like the cat. But if someone is er... willing to pay full bore for something sight unseen, I guess I can't begrudge them that.

 

Cute picture, it made me smile

 

 

I'm not putting up with the BS on Ebay, to pay full price!

[FLJeepGuy]

I for one, always snipe, by hand. I watch the item up to the closing time and if it's gone past what I want to pay, then I don't bid. If it's still below my max bid, I put in my max bid with less than five seconds on the clock. If someone wanted the pen worse than me, then their max bid will win. So be it.

 

One thing someone mentioned above is that they were beaten "by only a couple of bucks". Honestly, you have no way of knowing how much your max was beaten by as eBay will only increment the winning bid just enough to move past all other bidders' max bids. There's no way to know what the winner's actual max bid was. For all you know you were beaten by hundreds.

[pal38]

I think ebay sniping is very unfair. Not because I'm outbid, it happens. But because when a bot is monopolizing bandwidth to place bids and it can do it 20 times a second, and the page lags, you are just disqualified from trying.

 

*Edit* I never bid on week-end ending auctions anymore for this reason.

 

We've got a bidding platform like eBay in Switzerland, it's called www.ricardo.ch. There too you have a closing time of course, but: When there is a high bid in the last 2 minutes, the time limit is pushed out a further 5 minutes! No sniping here!

 

I don't like it. I much prefer the thrilling suspense of eBay, it's just more fun!

[mirosc]

hahaha, great pic! :roflmho:

Welcome to the club!

[outbackpengeek]

I find it very strange when people talk about 'fair' pricing of vintage pens. Secondhand things are worth what people are willing to pay for them, end of story.

[lorr1e1]

i managed to snipe someone else on a pack of estie nibs my high bid was fairly high he put he a last bid of £6 right at the end so he lost it because he didn't give enough time. hehe. serves him right for not bidding earlier. i would say s someone else says is to put in the maximum bid you would want to pay then leave it at that.

 

i lost an estie nib because someone put a final bid 50pence higher than mine right at the last min,so that i could not re-bid. another strategy is, if you are the highest bidder, in the last 2 or three mins, increase your bid again by £10 if you are wiling, because then the person you are bidding against will have to keep guessing what your bid is and make them work to outbid you. it depends on how much you want the the item.

 

 

[FLJeepGuy]

i lost an estie nib because someone put a final bid 50pence higher than mine right at the last min,so that i could not re-bid. another strategy is, if you are the highest bidder, in the last 2 or three mins, increase your bid again by £10 if you are wiling, because then the person you are bidding against will have to keep guessing what your bid is and make them work to outbid you. it depends on how much you want the the item.

You really have no way of knowing what the max bid that person put in. He beat you by 50pence because that was as high as eBay needed to raise his bid to beat you, more than likely, his bid was significantly higher than that.

[pajaro]

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-J0GVux-in_4/TWsLllUB_4I/AAAAAAAABJs/sjmldUjrlhI/s1600/lol-cats_outbid-cat.jpg

 

 

I've bid on no less than eight Esties this week only to be outbid in the last minute.

 

I love this great picture, and all the more so because I used to sometimes feel this way after losing to a sniper. Thanks, great!

 

I have too many pens and I don't care any more about buying any more of this junk. The action at the end of an auction on ebay does provide some amusement, because there is sometimes a bit of cut and thrust at the end, maybe fun for the amusement challenged, and maybe better if you are just watching and not bidding. I am amused by p-----g contests, and by all the last-second bids. I am sometimes amused looking at the bid history after coming home from work, and sometimes watching it live. It's all just stuff, and if you lose today, be of good cheer, because a better deal or more interesting item will come up soon. Why encumber yourself with today's junk when tomorrow will bring up something golden?

 

Ah, yes, snagged some Venus nibs. Heated them to remove Venus nibs and put something golden in their place, and reheated to set the outrages in. Always something fun coming around on the ebay carousel. Better if you see humor in everything. And the beat goes on . . .

[Scrawler]

<snip>

 

I love this great picture, and all the more so because I used to sometimes feel this way after losing to a sniper. Thanks, great!

 

I have too many pens and I don't care any more about buying any more of this junk. The action at the end of an auction on ebay does provide some amusement, because there is sometimes a bit of cut and thrust at the end, maybe fun for the amusement challenged, and maybe better if you are just watching and not bidding. I am amused by p-----g contests, and by all the last-second bids. I am sometimes amused looking at the bid history after coming home from work, and sometimes watching it live. It's all just stuff, and if you lose today, be of good cheer, because a better deal or more interesting item will come up soon. Why encumber yourself with today's junk when tomorrow will bring up something golden?

 

Ah, yes, snagged some Venus nibs. Heated them to remove Venus nibs and put something golden in their place, and reheated to set the outrages in. Always something fun coming around on the ebay carousel. Better if you see humor in everything. And the beat goes on . . .

Ebay bidding is just entertainment. They do ask you to enjoy yourself. There are often BIN prices for those who do not wish to be entertained. Or reliable suppliers on FPN. There is no such thing as a "fair" price for a second hand item. The "fair" price is what someone wishes to pay for it.

[brewerjeff]

I'm not really upset. I thought it was funny. I keep getting sniped at the end. Literally in the last minute. A lot of times, I'm not by a computer at the end of the auction as well.

:roflmho:

 

Amen Brother / Sister

 

After years of going to real auctions I find the dumb ebay way irritating and certainly NOT in the sellers interest. Most what I get on ebay is "but it now" stuff. For auctions I check for the tell tale signs that simple folk like me are bidding, not some pro with a super sniper program. And what about that "Make an Offer" option? How stupid is that! Who is going to pay the asking price when the seller flat out tells you he'll take less?

 

Is there and "ebay rant" forum? There should be.

Edited September 20, 2012 by brewerjeff

[OcalaFlGuy]

While at the same time, the vast majority of this forum have pens that either they would not have gotten otherwise or for anywhere near the same price were there no Fleabay. Myself especially. I would be surprised if I had 1/10 the pens I do were it not for The Bay. It can easily be argued that Fleabay saved fountain pen collecting. Otherwise it's likely millions of pens we drool over every day would be otherwise resting in some landfill.

 

If you look hard enough at anything like Ebay or Paypal there's something not to like and whine about.

 

I really have no ill towards either company. Do some people have legit gripes with them, I'm sure they do. They will with ANY operation of that size and complexity. It sure hasn't been the case with me. I'd say 99% of my Ebay transactions have been happy ones along with 100% of my Paypal ones.

 

For me, I'd say that my Ebay purchases have been more enjoyable that Most every other face to face retail transaction I take place in.

 

Of course, I love to hear from the Fleabay haters, they're just more that if they're truthful, I won't have to bid against.

 

Bruce in Ocala, FL

[pajaro]

Yes, ebay facilitates getting all kinds of stuff you would never find otherwise. Some of these items are actually things you need. One such item: clear plastic handle for bathub, exact Delta replacement for a broken one.

[estie1948]

I am sometimes that cat. Most of the time, when I am outbid, I try to be philosophical about it (that is, I tell myself it is for the best or the pen probably wasn't as good as the photo looked or some other such rubbish that I don't really believe). However, every so often it really gets under my skin and, I must admit, I'm that cat.

 

It will do me no good for you to explain all the very sound and sane reasons why this is a bad thing. I know all that first hand from experience. It doesn't change how I feel. Even the fact that on one occasion I noticed that a bidder seemed to be waiting for me to bid on a pen before he/she bid. On each of the pens I bid on, some bidder (which I believe to this very day to be the same unknown person in each and every case) would continually enter the minimum bid until my top bid was exceeded. I would raise my top bid and he/she, black hearted villain that he/she was and remains to be - I am sure, would repeat the process. Finally, I turned the tables on him/her. I entered a ridiculously high bid on an unrestored, third tier pen. I can't describe the great glee with which I watched as he/she kept nudging the bid ever closer to my top bid. Oh the blissful sense of sweet revenge I experienced as I watched the price soar far beyond reason. I knew I had nothing to worry about because this bidding idiot obviously knew nothing about pens and always outbid me no matter what I bid. He/She never, ever stopped short of my top bid . . . except this one time. And that is how, several years ago, I came to own a $78 Arnold lever-less lever fill fountain pen with a bent nib.

 

Yes, I am sometimes that cat. But I have learned to be philosophical about it.

 

-David.

[jonveley]

C'mon, really? Pens (and pencils) are like buses - if you miss one, just wait for the next one to come around and be ready to pay the fare when it does if you are still interested.

 

I can count one one hand the number of things I've missed out on and never seen another. My mantra is "they didn't make just one."

[brewerjeff]

I like ebay just fine. Entertainment, good source for information on many many things. I just don't like ythe upside down bidding process. I know of one auctioneer that has on-line bidding. When a bid has been made for an item, that auction will not close for (I think) two minutes. Simple. I prefer to go mano a mano with my competitor and see who wins, not who has software to sneek in at the last nano second.... th f*ing cowards... come out and fight d@mn it!

[OcalaFlGuy]

No one "hides" behind any snipe program. All the proxy server's bids get considered before the final close.

 

You Can beat ALL the snipe programs by hand, I know, I do it routinely. Still, you WON'T WIN unless you have the highest bid.

 

IMO people who Really have issues with snipe programs are either ignorant of how they work and/or don't have the self control to use one.

 

There are really only two relevant FACTS re; sniping.

 

It does make it harder to loose out by missing the auction end and it Can prevent you from overbidding due to emotions.

 

The person with the highest bid wins. Period. It doesn't matter whether that bid gets to Fleabay via a snipe program, a manually fired single shot behind the ear, or carrier pigeon. He who bids highest will win.

 

Bruce in Ocala, FL

[mirosc]

Even worse than being outbid is coming too late...

Just yesterday was a nice Doric from Christof here on FPN. As soon as I had logged in and seen it, I wrote a mail, but it was already on hold for someone else. aaargh, I would have paid twice the price for it. Sometimes it just isn't about the price, but being there at the right moment.

[pajaro]

Frankly I have reached a point such that when I lose out on bidding on any of this junk I almost always feel a sense of relief that there will be no more junk in the mailbox that will complicate my choice of what pens to use on any given day. I use the same pens every day, and all the new junk rests in a drawer or some gilded or crystal cup. Sometimes some new purchase or ridiculous improvisation elbows its way into the inner circle of pens I use, but this is most unusual.

 

I only bid on auctions to see if something can be had cheaply. Cheap purchases can be cannibalized to make ridiculous improvisations. Also, the price gets bid up to help the seller. Sellers need to be rewarded for recycling all this junk back into the market for you to buy. It keeps them working for us all.

 

To the person in Wisconsin who used some thinly disguised crude language, your suggestions are somewhat off the mark, because sniping programs and bidders bidding in the last seconds are only using the the system devised by ebay for bidding, and your preference for auctions where a bid lengthens the auction is not what is offered by ebay. When in Rome, do as the Romans do.

[jonveley]

To the person in Wisconsin who used some thinly disguised crude language, your suggestions are somewhat off the mark, because sniping programs and bidders bidding in the last seconds are only using the the system devised by ebay for bidding, and your preference for auctions where a bid lengthens the auction is not what is offered by ebay. When in Rome, do as the Romans do.

 

I've got to disagree. There's two universal truths about ebay:

 

1. There is absolutely NO mystery concerning when the auction ends.

 

2. There is absolutely NO circumstance in which the person who bid the most by that time didn't win.

 

The only bidders who "lose" to a sniper are the bidders who haven't bid as much as they would have been willing to bid. If you bid as much as you were willing to pay and someone else bid more, they wanted it more.

[pajaro]

To the person in Wisconsin who used some thinly disguised crude language, your suggestions are somewhat off the mark, because sniping programs and bidders bidding in the last seconds are only using the the system devised by ebay for bidding, and your preference for auctions where a bid lengthens the auction is not what is offered by ebay. When in Rome, do as the Romans do.

 

I've got to disagree. There's two universal truths about ebay:

 

1. There is absolutely NO mystery concerning when the auction ends.

 

2. There is absolutely NO circumstance in which the person who bid the most by that time didn't win.

 

The only bidders who "lose" to a sniper are the bidders who haven't bid as much as they would have been willing to bid. If you bid as much as you were willing to pay and someone else bid more, they wanted it more.

 

Are you disagreeing with me or the other guy? I am mystified.