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 Replies: 17 / Views: 9,904 |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
621 Posts |
The title pretty much sums it up, when I place a max bid on an item can the seller see it or only the actual amount the item is at at the moment? Thanks guys.  |
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
10982 Posts |
No. Your max bid is hidden from sellers and everyone else until it is superseded by an equal or higher bid.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
9796 Posts |
BH1964 is correct, you are the only one that will know how much you've bid, until someone bids a higher amount. You can see how the automatic bids work on a sold item by clicking on the bids link then turn on show automatic bids. Can be interesting to see how bidders get into bidding wars, and last minute bids affect others that bid much earlier. Bottom line - if you really want something bird as much as you are willing to pay in the past 10 seconds (you can bid early, but I don't like showing my hand to early if I can help it). I've seen items sell for more than a thousand dollars in the last few seconds when just a minute before the bid was at $30.00.
"Buy the Book Before You Buy the Coin" - Aaron R. Feldman - "And read it" - Me 2013! ANA Life Member #3288 in good standing since 1981, ANS, Early American Coppers Member (EAC), Colonial Coin Collectors Club member (C4), Conder Token Collector Club member (CTCC), Civil War Token Society (CWTS) member, Liberty Seated Collectors Club (LSCC) & Numismatic Bibliomania Society member (NBS), USMex, Member in good standing, 2¢ variety collector. See my want page: http://goccf.com/t/140440 |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1130 Posts |
A while back, I saw a 1909 s vdb jump a few thousand dollars at the last 2 seconds. You should look at the bid history by clicking on the number of bids. It is neat to see when people bid etc.
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
621 Posts |
I've seen that happen on lots of coins I'm bidding on except in much smaller amounts but still many multiples of what it was. It hurts to see a coin you really want go far beyond what you are willing to pay in the last few seconds.
If a auction ends at a time where i'll be available I will try to wait til about 15-20 seconds before the end and go with my max amount then but due to my work schedule and sleeping habits it's pretty much 2 days a week I can do it that way. the rest of the time I just have to put in my max bid on items I really want and hope. It's worked out ok so far. I've both gotten nice deals on coins I really wanted and seen coins I wanted pretty bad for 1 bid over what I was originally bidding that I would of bid on again if I'd been home.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1130 Posts |
 I really hate that. I was bidding on a tackle box that had went off before and not sold. It would have been a great one to split up and sell individually. It went off late when I was asleep and I got outbid by a couple bucks.  If you can be home, sniping at the end is the best way to win. If you have something that you really want at the end, and it is really cheap, I have saw some people click the one click bid to up there max bid about 10 times at the end to cancel everyone else out. I haven't done this yet, and you would really have to pay attention to how much you are bidding. Edited by Bassmaster
01/01/2014 10:40 am
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Pillar of the Community
United States
7375 Posts |
Funny, sometimes it seems like they can  I finally figured out why I "just" kept getting beat was because another buyer had a max bid already in, higher than my bid. Sometimes if I look at the bids page and click on show automatic bids, I can sometimes estimate if a current bidder is at his max or not by whether the last bid is an odd number less than the minimum increment away from the previous bid. Most of the time my competition is either the most recent bidder or an invisible bidder waiting to pounce. Usually everyone below the most recent bidder is out of the game. Bottom line....if I really want something, I have to MAKE SURE I'm the last bidder. |
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Pillar of the Community
Australia
852 Posts |
Yes they can see your maximum bid (only in a sneaky way). There are a lot of crook/sneaky sellers out there
I put a high bid on a coin last month (I think I bid $333) a week before auction end. A few days later the current highest bid went from about $20 to $338 and then 2 minutes later the bid was retracted.
So now somebody knew what my high bid was, that could of been the seller (or his shill) seeing how high they could force my bid.
I bid on 100+ lots/week and I guess about 10% of them have some sort of shill bids to force up the final price. If the shill accidentally outbids you at the end then the seller can cancel the sale and give you a "second chance offer".
I also check out the bid histories of at least 20 bidders/week who I think are suspicious and find the majority are shills (things like 250 bids out of 270 in the past month with the same seller is a red flag).
With one particular coin that I REALLY wanted I let the shill bid the coin to something like 2,800 pounds, he had a 2,999 English pounds max bid (another sign of a shill is bidding just below a round number) and then I fortunatly just pipped his bid with 3,000.02 pound bid (about $4,500). As my bid was only a few pence above his he probably thought he had squeezed my max bid out of me. I then put in my true max bid 2 seconds before auction end. I got great pleasure when I received my coin to contact the seller to say how happy I was to win with my lower (3000.02 pound) bid and didn't need to use the (about) 11,100 pound bid. Bet that seller squirmed when he found out that I would have happily paid another 8,000+ pounds (about 11,000 USD) for that coin (extremely rare and the best example known, and worth every penny of 11,100 pounds).
*** Edited by Staff | The bad word filter is in place for a reason. Bypassing the filter and making the intended word obvious anyway is completely unacceptable. ***
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Valued Member
Canada
129 Posts |
the poster up above me you are rich man
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Pillar of the Community
United States
7375 Posts |
neal....very interesting. Good thing you had the coin first before contacting the seller. You are in a whole 'nother $ world compared to me. I'm glad you got the best of that shill/seller though. I bid quite a bit on small stuff. It's fun and there is a lot that can be learned. Your post was instructive. If I look at the bidding history near the end of the auction, and the high bidder is less than a full bid increment from the previous bid, then I know that's his max bid, and the previous bidder just got outbid. Of course that doesn't protect me from the usual inevitable sniper waiting out there.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2669 Posts |
Quote:
Yes they can see your maximum bid (only in a sneaky way). There are a lot of crook/sneaky sellers out there It's hard operating as an honest seller in this kind of environment, as well. We know other sellers do this, and that we have a very unlevel playing field. Sometimes it's very difficult to rationalize NOT doing this - especially if we really need the funds our sales bring in and we don't get near as much for something as we should have, because we didn't - and refuse to - 'play the game'. As a buyer, it's excellent advice to educate yourself on which sellers use this tactic and which do not. Who you end up buying from is therefore more informed - and if you want to bid on something from a sneaky seller you will at least know how to go about it. Keep in mind other buyers will also bid to see another's max bid, not just a shill. That's happened to me a couple of times (as a seller); both times the bid was retracted, that person never bid again. I assumed the high bid they saw discouraged them from trying. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
8137 Posts |
that sometimes happens to me. I would look at a coin and bid on it only to see that I have been outbid. This goes on for a little while until I just give up and get the same thing the next time I go to my LCS.
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
1751 Posts |
The odd number of a bid isn't always a shill bidder. When I first started buying on ebay, I had a Ph conversation with a very nice seller, who told me to bid using odd number if I really wanted to win. From time to time I use this approach and sometimes it does work. So bids using odds numbers aren't always a shill. |
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
4601 Posts |
I *always* do that because I like numbers not just 00
-----Burton 50+ year / Life / Emeritus ANA member (joined 12/1/1973) Life member: Numismatics International, CONECA Member: TNA, FtWCC, NETCC, EveryCountry (online) coin club Owned by three cats and a wife of 40+ years (joined 1983) Author: 3rd Edition of the Sample Slabs book, https://www.sampleslabs.info/ |
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Valued Member
Australia
491 Posts |
No! I can not tell what a buyer's max bid is but I can tell if they have a max bid and not a single bid entry on any item.
Edited by kg5
03/01/2014 12:38 am
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Moderator
 United States
16681 Posts |
I've been a seller on ebay now since 1997 and can see when a particular bidder will be coming back for more :-) swcoin.ecrater.com
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Replies: 17 / Views: 9,904 |
Posted 12/31/2013 03:35 am
