My strategy on Ebay and Gunbroker is to bid the most I would ever pay (or can afford at the moment) and let it ride.
I miss out on a lot of things I want this way because auction fever grabs the other bidders and drives the price through the ceiling.
I learned about auction fever at a bankruptcy auction of a small gun shop in Iowa where two bidders blood got up and they bid a bone-stock, plain-Jane Ruger 10/22 up to $500... In 1993. They just couldn't let the other guy "win" despite paying five times the going rate for the gun at the time.
I experienced the fever when I bought The Biscayne at a police auction.
I was there to buy an ex-Iowa State Patrol Caprice 9C1 because I wanted a 350 not a 305. I bid on several and sensibly quit as the price slipped past what I had in my account.
There's banks at those auctions with kiosks describing their easy loan terms...
As the day wore on I got increasingly desperate to take something home.
So I bid up the Caprice Classic to about 50% over what I could have bought it for from a used car lot and took out a loan for what I didn't have in my pocket.
This adventure also taught me that I wasn't grown-up enough yet to handle the responsibility of loans and the requisite payments. But that's another story.
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If you are not already using it, go get an e-snipe account. I put in my max bid and tell it to launch at 1 second before closing time.
ReplyDeleteIt ups the chances of getting what you want (if none of the other bidders is in blood heat or using the same mechanism with a sooner bid trigger). It also removes temptation, once you set it, forget about it until it reports you have been outbid (ignore) or announces you won.