Monday, April 14, 2014

The Frustration Of A Knuckleheaded Seller


About 3 weeks ago a seller put up a 2002 Upper Deck Authentics Ken Griffey Jr (#162) reverse negative parallel as an error card and they set a reserve price. I would love to add one of these to my collection, you do not see them show up to often, and with a day left in the auction and the price sitting around $5 I put in a bid of $15.79 hoping that the reserve was like $12-15. I was bid up as the time ticked away and the auction ended with me having the final bid of $12.51. Slight problem, obviously the reserve was not less than that and the auction ended with no winner.

I watched the seller for the next 2 weeks to see if they would put up the card again. I was hoping that he would see the final price and either set a BIN or a lower reserve. No luck, the card just wasn’t showing up and I stopped checking his auctions earlier last week (he sold mostly cheap electronics and home gadgets). Which turned out to be my bad decision. I found out he eventually put the card back up, no reserve on a 3-day auction. The damn thing sold for a little over $6 with free shipping.
I know that losing out on the card was ultimately my fault for not watching the listings closer but damn, he could have easily contacted me after the first auction and I would have paid $15 and still have been happy.

Now someone got a better deal, he lost out on an additional $10 and I lost an awesome card for my collection. I am bummed about this.
/rant

1 comment:

  1. I've never understood why a seller will start the price low (say $2) and have a reserve price of $30. Reserve not met? Maybe they should start out with the reserve price. It will either sell or it won't.

    I do understand bidders getting caught up in an emotional bidding frenzy and hopefully it will push the selling price over the top. I tend not to bid on auctions like that.

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