Baldwin 801CP on eBay

[jay]

This will be interesting.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 502wt_1396

[PhilHunt]

No doubt....that's a genuine 801. I wonder if it has the battery box with it.

[PhilHunt]

$1,400 and climbing!!

[jay]

Thats crazy.

2***r and another were building the bids by nickel and diming.
r***u came in strong with one bid and crushed the reserve. If he didn't contact the owner for the reserve...then I would imagine there is still some change left to his bid. (With 3 days left, poor bidding strategy, imo...)

Phil, what were these new?

[Randy Finney]

Jay, my $1,400.00 may be a poor bidding strategy but, here is my thinking...

I couldn't really care less what the reserve is on a product. To enter into a below-the-reserve bidding contest with another bidder is a pointless waste of time because, even you win that contest, you still don't win the product anyway.

The goal of my bid was not to discover the reserve, it was to discover how serious the other bidders are since they are my only competition, not the reserve.

Whether the reserve was $1,400.00 or whether I out bid someone who had a maximum bid of $1,300.00 doesn't really matter because, in either case, I would still have to pay $1,400.00 to win the product. Therefore, best case scenario is that I exposed the reserve for all to see. The worst case scenario is that I only raised the price of the product by $100.00 since someone was willing to pay $1,300.00 anyway.

My bid has done two things: 1) Got rid of the annoying, non-serious bidders bidding below the reserve, and; 2) put other bidders in the position to have to discover what my maximum bid is - in essence, it put me in control of the "reserve".

As you say, no one knows my maximum bid. Someone will have to be willing to out bid me in the next few days to discover this, (which will almost certainly happen on this product). Of course, lots of people will wait until the dying seconds of the auction and use the "lucky-click" method.

In any case, by discovering the minimum that I will have to pay early in the auction (in this case $1,400), I have a lot more insight into what the maximum bid of a serious bidder is likely to be and can plan my future strategy accordingly.

If it is not a big "trade secret", I would be very interested to hear your bidding strategy, Jay, as I am always looking for ways to improve my own.

Randy

[jay]

Hi Randy....
I have PM'ed you...but I wanted to post that I am sorry for commenting on the manner in which you bid. In hindsight, I don't have a dog in that hunt and I shouldn't have judged how you or anyone else conduct their business on ebay. Totally my bad.

[srgntschultz]

I believe that a guy bought an old harmony off ebay a while back and everyone on the chetboard couldnt believe that it went for 450.00.And that the only winner was the seller for that price? But now i see another baldwin/harmony guitar on ebay and its a totally ridiculous price over a grand and its a great deal,for a guitar that didnt even get close to that originally,i bet it was under 500 bucks brand new! Hmm,sounds kinda fishy to me! I'd say if you like the guitar your bidding on,buy it for whatever you want to pay for it,my friend bought the chet studio off ebay a few months ago and again everyone said he was crazy becausei t has a small crack on it,its the best playing guitar and sounding guitar,and the crack was very very small and no effect at all. Sounds like some are jealous to me!

[Tom Keller]

Well the auction is over now ended early. To bad! It would of been interesting to see how much this guitar would have brought on the last day.

[jay]

Rats...

[Randy Finney]

Jay, I wasn't even remotely offended. I don't get offended just because someone has an opinion that may be different than my own! (I am going to have to work on my reputation around here )

Thanks for the PM. I see the logic in your approach.

I don't know why the Seller, "jgevans", chose to renege on the listing. Didn't make a deal with me.

My maximum bid was only $1,500.00. It appears that no one had a $1,300.00 bid and that my bid exposed the reserve. Bid history is here: http://offer.ebay.ca/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewBids&_trksid=p4340.l2565&item=300583422763

I guess my bid may be the reason he canceled - he may of felt that his reserve was met too early and will re-list it at some point with a higher reserve.

Most likely is that he had a side deal someone and was just using eBay to fish for a price, but, as a Bidder you have to assume the Seller has listed in good faith and actually wants to sell the product via auction.

Oh well, maybe this is just the Universe taking care of me. I didn't really need another guitar that I didn't need anyway.

Randy