Sellers and flexmania

[Uncial]

If you watch a particular sellers lots you can usually spot it very easily, especially when it happens very frequently. A seller puts a pen up for auction and it's sold (mostly with a high advance bid). Three days later it is listed again (too soon for a postal return). Sometimes you can see the same (shill) bidder return. Its very easy to do. Its easiest spotted when a seller has two or more of a particular item and wants a high sale price for all of them. Shill bidding and relisting creates an impression of what other bidders think they need to bid to get the item ; a false inflation. You'll see these sellers relist their multiple lots over and over before they actually sell.

[sansenri]

ok, I understand that, but I'm not convinced it's so easy to detect a shill bidder. First of all you would need to know that the pen relisted is exactly the same pen. What if the seller really has a large stock of the same pen to sell (Martini usually sells new items on their ebay site).

 

[gyasko]

On 4/18/2021 at 6:57 AM, Aether said:

 

Sure, please point me in the direction of a reputable seller of vintage flexible nibs who employs this descriptive system?   I'll wait.

 

I see no reason to prefer sellers’ marketing jargon over BoBo’s.  They’re trying to sell me something, BoBo isn’t.  

 

At any rate, why the attitude?  

 

If you’re not interested in BoBo’s system, it’s always possible to scroll on by.  The process can even be automated.  I myself don’t find everyone’s posts equally scintillating, but who am i to tell people to stop posting because I Am Not Interested.

 

[Aether]

You missed the point, but that's okay, perhaps it wasn't cleary made.

[Lam1]

On 4/19/2021 at 10:05 PM, TitoThePencilPimp said:

Interesting. Hope the study of relativistic quantum mechanics is going great for you. I majored in Pure Math (recent BS). However, I study physics when time permits. Recently I finished Griffiths QM intro book. I have a copy of Sakurai on my shelf that I hope to start reading around December. Maybe in two years I can read an intro book on RQM. 

 

Any books or articles you would recommend?

 

Bjorken & Drell, Vol. 1, still is the best for RQM in my opinion, despite being very old.

Sakurai, "Advanced" is also a great book, if you can tolerate the silly notation.

Or you can go straight to quantum field theory...

[TitoThePencilPimp]

20 hours ago, sansenri said:

Just curious on your statement, what clues do you have that Martini does this on their ebay auctions?

Items tend to go higher than what the "accepted" price is. Same users inflating the bids. 

[TitoThePencilPimp]

Thank you OMASsimo and Lam for a very informative post. Just checked, the copy I have is "Baby Sakurai." I will pick up the suggested books when money permits.

 

I must say tho. If I would have taken my first physics class sooner. I would have aimed to be a Physicist instead of a Mathematician. But all hope is not lost. I may consider doing a Mathematical Physics program. Still deciding my grad school options.

 

 

Does anyone have experience with Sailor Pocket Pens (vintage). Ie., are they known to write like current Sailors or a bit softer? I have considered buying one of these for a while now, but I have not been able to find detailed information about them.

[sansenri]

1 hour ago, TitoThePencilPimp said:

Items tend to go higher than what the "accepted" price is. Same users inflating the bids. 

It sounds like your own rather approximate evaluation, as to what an "accepted" price is.

I'm not convinced that when a pen sells for more that it should it's always shill bidding.

Also, the same user may be recognized as bidding repeatedly on the same auction, but you can not spot the same bidder on different auctions, so that does not sound like sufficient proof of shill bidding to me. It's just a feeling you may have, but that's about it.

I'm just wondering, as I am a customer of Martini, but also have been reading about possible mathematical algorithms developed to detect shill bidding, and I'm wondering what the patterns are.

 

At any rate, I've bough a few pens from Regina, also on their ebay site, and I've not felt cheated, my purchases were not dirt cheap, but the pens from ebay were always brand new and boxed and quite a lot cheaper than the average street price (my HS bronze was bought for less than 400 euro from them). I know they are not cheap, but you won't find many German shops that are.

Regarding relisting the same pen, you can buy a Lamy 2000 from them a day, but I doubt they are re-selling the same one to themselves continuosly... I think they really do have an infinite stock of that pen.

[Bo Bo Olson]

19 hours ago, gyasko said:

I see no reason to prefer sellers’ marketing jargon over BoBo’s.  They’re trying to sell me something, BoBo isn’t.  

They don't have time to invent systems, they have to buy and sell, constantly.

They are not writing. They are selling.

If they use terminology that is of depth, someone will disagree and want their money back....and every half an hour is money. Half an hour, pack, post, receive returned item,  un pack and re-list returned items.

 

What are they doing the rest of the time....bidding against me at a live auction.....grumble cubed, by telephone and computer.

I so miss the good old days of 4-5 years ago before telephone bidding, or three years ago before computer bidding.

Then they are posting the pens where ever they sell them.

 

In Germany and I'm sure elsewhere, we have a Pen Cartel, offering a E100 pen for Stateside $285 in the Buy Now Idiot section.....and listing the same pen at say a start $270 in the auction section.

Works like a charm, the idiot buys instead of bidding. Which was why they do that. Too few actually Hunt for a certain pen at regular value. Though I do see enough  pens going for E-100.

 

I'm sure the better looking are bought by the Pen Cartel and sold to folks in the States who will pay a fortune for a E100 pen.

 

That has been going on for 3-4 years.

The normal folks see the high prices and no longer put Gramps pen in at 1 Euro or even 19 E start price....They put it in at Buy Now Idiot prices.

 

I buy my pens out side my new 200's at live auctions, where I only have to bid against dealers, who have a profit margin. So I don't have to bid against pen collecting fanatics ...who have no common sense.....ie willing to waste more money than I have.