Subject: RE: eBay sniping

From: "Dwight K. Elvey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu Apr 24 13:10:00 2003

Hi
 I have no problem with sniping, other than that
I can't always be around at the last minute.
The only time I didn't like being sniped was the
first item I lost to this method. Once I understood
what was going on, I couldn't understand why bidders
would make incremental bids. I usually will post
a lower bid, early on. This way, other savy bidders
will check what I've previously bid on items and
they will either back out or, in those cases that
they just have to have an item, they will out bid
me. I think it tends to even out the play field.
I always look to see what other bidders have been doing.
 I wouldn't mind having a combination of open and
sealed bits. I could then snipe without having
to wait till the last minute.
Dwight

>From: "J.C.Wren" <[email-masked]>
>
>Why sniping is good:
>
>	Many people get upset about having auctions sniped.  All this garbage 
about
>extending auctions an extra minute, blah blah blah, is just a dumb idea.
>The reason I regularly snipe is purely psychological: If you enter a bid
>early on in an item, you're expressing an interest.  This likely drives the
>price up, since *most* people seem unwilling to set hard prices and stick to
>them.
>
>	My procedure it to set the price when I notice the item, basically, 
what's
>worth to me.  I then track the item, and don't bother bidding if it goes
>over my limit.  However, if the closing time comes around, and it's still
>below my limit, I want until about 3 seconds before close, and submit.
>
>	If you're not fast enough, or haven't set a higher price, you lose.  I 
have
>no moral quandries about this.  There is nothing that I have, do, or know
>that makes me a better bidder than anyone else.  Simply the ability to stick
>to my price, and not show early interest, driving prices up unnecessarily.
>
>	And as for the "no interest" technique, no one can gripe about that.  
I've
>seen plenty of buyers at junk stores, hamfests, auctions, etc, that
>desparately want an item, but make it seem like "eh, whatever".  Why?
>Because they *know* if you say "Damn, this is the coolest widget ever, one
>of only 5 ever made, I *have* to have it!" they're quite likely to clue the
>seller in, or in any case, drive the price up.
>
>	Buy low, sell high.  To do otherwise is a Enron-esque business model, 
and
>just plain nuts.
>	--John

---

From: James Rice <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu Apr 24 14:03:01 2003

I can't always be around at the end so I use esnipe.  It costs a penny 
per dollar of the final price on a winning bid, but if I want something 
bad enough, it's worth it.  I was told by a friend that was cheating.  
Why?  Because I pay a server to snipe for me?  If I get snipe, I don't 
really care, I must have not wanted it as bad as they did.

I'm also really getting tired of everyone bad mouthing ebay.  I work 
50-60 hours a week, every week.   I don't have time to hunt through junk 
shops and salvage yards for bargains. I can use my time to make more 
money and do my collecting on ebay.  And let UPS deliver to my office.  
I paid  $342 for a Daystar Millennium last night because I want one to 
finish out my Daystar clone collection.  Is it worth $342.00?  I don't 
know but, I really don't care if it is or not, because I wanted it.   
When I sell something, I usually use ebay.  I've offered things in 
private sales to people on mailing lists and get tired of getting 
low-balled on offers.  On ebay, it's a worldwide market and there is 
always someone who wants almost everything.  If I have to have a certain 
price for something, I set a reserve.  Free enterprise will set the 
proper price for any item.

James

---

From: Adrian Vickers <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu Apr 24 14:39:00 2003

At 19:58 24/04/2003, James Rice wrote:

>Is it worth $342.00?  I don't know but, I really don't care if it is or 
>not, because I wanted it.

Then it obviously /is/ worth $342. To you. It's not worth $0.01 to me.

The relative values of things to people - especially collector items - is 
so variable as to be almost meaningless. I'd have happily paid £100 for a 
Sharp MZ-80K two years ago. Now I'll baulk at anything over about £25, and 
I'd prefer it free. Why? Because I have two of them now. Their relative 
value to me as a purchaser has changed significantly for reasons which are 
totally unrelated to their "real" value. Same goes for the MZ-80A & B, of 
which I have 2 & 1 examples respectively. I'd still pay £50 or so for a VGC 
"B", as the one I have has a slightly dubious keyboard & a nasty scratch in 
the screen which I don't think is repairable.

-- 
Cheers, Ade.
Be where it's at, B-Racing!
http://b-racing.com

---

From: The Design Fort DTP <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu Apr 24 15:04:00 2003

Hi all,

I'm in the process of digitizing a lot of old manuals and books. Some pieces
I want to make downloadable on my website.
But I don't want to run into trouble with copyright etc. Does anybody have
experience with publishing old stuff on the internet?
I'm thinking about stuff like Heathkit manuals, or the "How to build a
digital computer" book. Or articles of old Popular Electronics magazines
that are relevant to vintage computers.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Herbert
Computer Museum of Nova Scotia

---

From: Guy Sotomayor <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu Apr 24 15:40:01 2003

> really care, I must have not wanted it as bad as they did.
I have mixed feelings about sniping.  I've lost a number of bids to
"snipers".  The thing that bugs me about it is that for items I care
about, I don't have an opportunity to respond to the snipe.  Most of the
bids I've lost due to sniping have been where I was the original bidder
and there were no other bidders until the snipe.  I think this is unfair
to not only me, but the seller as well.  For example I may have put in a
max bid on something for $30.  An esnipe comes in for $31.  Upon seeing
that I may have re-assed my bid and bid it to $50.  But because esnipes
happen in the last few seconds, I can't respond and the seller
potentially looses additional funds for the item.  But in the end, if I
wanted really badly, I would have bid more.  So it's a tough call.

> proper price for any item.

I don't have a problem with e-bay.  Sometimes people get into a feeding
frenzy over an item which drives the price on an item way up.  I look
for items on e-bay that I either think I will get a bit of a discount on
rather than finding it at a dealer or it's just not available
elsewhere.  There are also sellers who think their items are worth more
than they really are, but as you said free enterprise will determine the
proper price.
-- 

TTFN - Guy

---

From: Mike Ford <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu Apr 24 17:58:01 2003

>But I don't want to run into trouble with copyright etc. Does anybody have

Make a nice pretty web page, but only put links to the files on the 
official web site. Keep the actual files on some other unrelated , unnamed 
site, and zip the files and give them meaningless file names. This way if 
somebody complains and the file site boots you off, just find another 
freeby file site and update the links.

---

From: Mike Ford <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu Apr 24 17:58:46 2003

>about, I don't have an opportunity to respond to the snipe.  Most of the

A) Sniping makes us feel bad about losing items we really would not have 
bid a lot more for anyway.

B) Sniping makes us feel bad about losing items we really would have bid a 
bit more for (and maybe, maybe not have won).

Solution
Always bid what you REALLY would be willing to pay for an item and stop 
fussing about it.

or

Start sniping, especially on items you really want, but really prefer to 
get at a lower price.

The simple fact is that seeing that somebody else is willing to bid X, 
often increases the value of an item to X+ something in our minds. With one 
of a kind items, that + something can get pretty wild too. Paying too much 
for something you really want can't be that great of a sin anyway.

---

From: Gary and the Samoyeds <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu Apr 24 19:13:00 2003

I just set the maximum amount to what I'm willing to pay and then let it sit there.  If I get beaten, so be it.  I've had My bid jump by $20 in the last minute of the auction, but I still won and wanted to send a "ha ha" to whoever tried to steal it.  

Of course, I only buy a little bit, nothing really expensive, and nothing really rare.  I suppose if I were bidding on a Kenbak or Apple I, it might be more annoying.

-- 
Sic semper tyrannus  

Send eMail to ----> [email-masked].  For contact info, see:  
        http://home.earthlink.net/~sleepyjackal/contact.htm

---

From: Vintage Computer Festival <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri Apr 25 02:10:00 2003

> the screen which I don't think is repairable.

This is a really good point.  There has to be an objective value based on
true scarcity (i.e. how many total units produced), not regional
scarcity, and generally acknowledged historical and/or technical
significance.  eBay prices do not generally reflect objective value.

I think Michael Nadeau's book made great strides towards this end, but
refinement is still needed.

To be sure, prices for old computers will still not settle in the near
future.

-- 

Sellam Ismail                                        Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger                http://www.vintage.org

 * Old computing resources for business and academia at www.VintageTech.com *

---

From: Vintage Computer Festival <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri Apr 25 02:15:01 2003

> that are relevant to vintage computers.

I would just put them up.  If/when you get a cease & desist letter, take
the offending material off and that's that.

--

---

From: Doc Shipley <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri Apr 25 02:58:00 2003

> significance.  eBay prices do not generally reflect objective value.

   There will never be any true or even consistent determination of a 
thing's "objective value".  It's a null phrase, an impossibility.
   "Value", by its very definition, is purely subjective. Any attempt to 
assign an immutable quantity will fail.  Even the criteria you've used 
as constants are variable, and subject to personal interpretation.
   "True" scarcity?  You intend to verify each unit produced, and verify 
the destruction of each unit not known to still exist?  It's not 
possible.
   Regional and *perceived* scarcity are much more relevant factors to 
real current value than some assigned global scarcity.  A good example 
is the plight of the DEC collectors in Australia and New Zealand, who 
would commit unnnatural acts for a working VAX.  Meanwhile, I have a 
stack of them in storage, besides the several I use at home.  I would 
drive across town to rescue another VS3100, but I doubt that I'd pay 
cash for one.

   Understand that I'm not nit-picking.  I'm trying to demonstrate that 
the "artificial" influences on eBay, realtime auctions, the feeding 
frenzies I've seen at swap meets -- they are _valid_ factors in the 
value of any product, and doubly so with collectibles.

   My PDP-11/53's "true" "objective" value would have to be nil. There's 
nothing it can do that can't be done more efficiently by a later 
PDP-11, and nothing *I* do with it that I couldn't do in SIMH, much 
faster and at a much lower real expense.  Its value is *entirely* 
emotional, and entirely subjective.

   That's the whole point, isn't it?

	Doc

---

From: "Wayne M. Smith" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri Apr 25 02:58:27 2003

> > I'm in the process of digitizing a lot of old manuals and 
> books. Some 
> > pieces I want to make downloadable on my website. But I 
> don't want to 
> > run into trouble with copyright etc. Does anybody have 
> experience with 
> > publishing old stuff on the internet? I'm thinking about stuff like 
> > Heathkit manuals, or the "How to build a digital computer" book. Or 
> > articles of old Popular Electronics magazines that are relevant to 
> > vintage computers.
> 
> I would just put them up.  If/when you get a cease & desist 
> letter, take the offending material off and that's that.
> 

There's also that small matter of $150,000 statutory damages for willful
infringement per copyrighted work ($30,000 per work for non-willful)
under the copyright statute.

---

From: Hans B Pufal <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri Apr 25 04:37:00 2003

Vintage Computer Festival wrote:

> There has to be an objective value based on

Why does there have to be an objective value? There are far too many 
variables to provide any sort of meaningful value, you cite some such as 
regional scarcity etc but there are also others such as the physical 
state of the item in question, its configuration, what comes with it in 
terms of documentation etc, the availability of such documentation if 
not included with the item, transport costs, number of people interested.

All these factors play a role and that is why I think eBay prices DO 
reflect market value. eBay provides an almost perfect global marketplace 
and in such an environment prices will fluctuate around a "market value".

If you as a buyer feel the prices are too high then that simply means 
there are people around who consider the value of those items to be 
higher than you do. I might as well gripe about the exhorbitant prices 
charged for BMW cars, I might be willing to pay say $10,000 for one yet 
the "market" price can be as high as $100,000, does my griping change 
anything?

> refinement is still needed.

Not having had the opportunity to see a copy I cannot comment, but 
without denigrating his good work, I would question the real world 
relevance of any value placed on any particular machine at a particular 
moment in time.

> To be sure, prices for old computers will still not settle in the near

And probably never will, it is a fluid, ever developing market as items 
come up for sale and collectors join and leave the community.

   -- hbp

---

From: Vintage Computer Festival <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri Apr 25 11:27:00 2003

> under the copyright statute.

Oops.  Who snuck those laws on the books? ;)

--

---

From: Vintage Computer Festival <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri Apr 25 14:18:00 2003

> thing's "objective value".  It's a null phrase, an impossibility.

Perhaps.  But there has to be at least some generally acceptable standard
by which people can use to trade fairly.  We do not really have that right
now.

> as constants are variable, and subject to personal interpretation.

I can concur with that.

> the destruction of each unit not known to still exist?  It's not

Ok, perhaps "true" was too strong an adjective.  But it is not impossible
to give an educated estimate (based on good research) as to how many units
are out there.  I've just learned of possibly four more Apple-1's that I
was not aware of before, which will take the total of known units in my
personal registry to 32 (I still have to verify there is not overlap from
what I already know).

With significant machines produced in low numbers, such as the Apple-1 and
PDP-8, it may not be all that impossible to estimate within a margin of
error of +/-15% the total number of units out there.  Once that number can
be ascertained, a reliable "value" based on demand could be established,
and trading can then be conducted on that basis of knowledge.

Of course, there is still variation based on condition and accessories
(peripherals, documentation, software, etc.) and that can also be
objectively valued with more research.

> drive across town to rescue another VS3100, but I doubt that I'd pay

Wasn't someone just arguing in a message a short while ago that eBay has
now opened up a global market and therefore increased demand to the same
finite supply?  Of course, this depends on whether or not you use eBay to
market your wares.  And then there's the issue of shipping charges, which
adds to the overall "value" that a person will assign to something.  If it
can be had for $1 but costs $99 to ship, it could be considered to be
worth just as much as someone who could pick it up locally and would be
willing to pay $100.  This assumes that the buyer is taking shipping into
consideration when they put down their bid.

But regional scarcity implies ignorance on the part of the buyer.  You
cannot always rely on this.  And in a global market like collectable
computers, you cannot completely rely on this anymore.

> value of any product, and doubly so with collectibles.

I can't entirely agree.  I'll pull up an old example.  If people are
regularly paying $10 for Apple //e's and then some uninformed buyer one
day pays $500, are all Apple //e's suddenly worth $500? or some
significant amount over $10 that is arrived at by averaging in the $500
sale?

I say no, it's still only worth $10.

> emotional, and entirely subjective.

Then what was it worth when it was new?  Wasn't the "value" then also
entirely emotional and subjective?

--

---

From: Vintage Computer Festival <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri Apr 25 14:21:30 2003

> and in such an environment prices will fluctuate around a "market value".

And again, I disagree, precisely because of the way that eBay auctions
work, and the factors that can influence a final selling price.

However, I will say that as time goes on, and using eBay becomes a way of
life, the values will normalize somewhat, and I think we are seeing that
with certain items now.

> relevance of any value placed on any particular machine at a particular

As I mentioned previously, the relevance is in establishing a baseline
value upon which two people can efficiently trade.

--

---

From: Mail List <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri Apr 25 15:25:00 2003

> some significant amount over $10 that is arrived at by averaging in the 
$500 sale?

You probably should use more advanced statistical analysis tools than just 
a simple
average. Been a long time, but the terms that come to mind are mean, and 
standard
deviation.

---

From: Doc Shipley <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri Apr 25 16:19:00 2003

Preface:
   I come at this from a slightly different viewpoint.  My father was a 
manufacturer, as well as distributor of other firms' product.  I 
literally grew up wheeling and dealing, and learning through loss of my 
allowance the difference between cost, value, and the expenses that lie 
between.
   My mother is a professor of business economics at a business college, 
and teaches at a nuts & bolts level.  What's different is that they 
were also missionaries in Uganda and Kenya for several months each year 
while Mother was taking her Master's, and she used the Ugandan economy 
and the concept of "relative regional valuation" in her thesis.  I 
absorbed a good bit of that, although not at any deep level.
   I've found eBay to be a very compressed, very accelerated microcosmic 
example of not only my mother's observations, but of general business 
principles of valuation and distribution.

   To quote the, uhm, well, anyway, to quote Richard Erlacher,

   "See below, plz."

> computers, you cannot completely rely on this anymore.

   Here I think you're not recognizing the difference between value and 
cost.  To mix our examples, the real _cost_ of a VAXstation 3100 in 
Austin - to me - is, say, $1 USD.  To someone in Melbourne, I'm 
guessing the cost is much closer to $100 USD.  Since I know there are 
persons in Australia who would like to have one, and they haven't 
contacted me to inquire about shipping arrangements, I can safely 
assume that the real _value_ in Australia doesn't approach the real 
_cost_.
   That's the condition of regional scarcity to which I referred.  While 
my example isn't extreme enough to warrant shipping a container of 
VAXen, it does imply, rightly I think, that the Australian owner of a 
VAXstation 3100 could expect a selling price many times higher than I 
could expect.

> I say no, it's still only worth $10.

   To you as buyer or to you as seller?  As buyer, absolutely.  If the 
thing was worth more than $10 to me as a buyer, and they had been 
selling at $10, I'd have already sated myself on $11 Apple //e's, so 
that spike would be irrelevant.  :)
   As seller, it's more complicated.  The answer would be "No, but yes." 
  If I put an Apple //e on the newsgroup at a fixed price, I'd look at 
the low side of this config and condition, as indicated by eBay and any 
other references I can find to actual sales, add 25-50%, and settle for 
the best offer.  If I have 100 //e's and I put them up at a Dutch 
auction, I would have to expect $8 or $9 each at best.  Auctioned as a 
single lot, maybe $2 each or even less.  If I have 100 units and I 
auction them singly, well presented, records of high price spikes would 
either be rare enough to not affect the average sale, or common enough 
to indicate that I may benefit from that mania.

> entirely emotional and subjective?

   Sure.  Its "value" was simply more widely acknowledged.

	Doc

---

From: Dan Wright <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon Apr 28 11:03:01 2003

> work, and the factors that can influence a final selling price.

No matter what anyone says, it remains a fact that eBay DOES determine a fair
market value of an item -- the value of that item on the eBay market :)  eBay
prices really have no relevance outside that scope, since any (most?) other
markets you'd be selling classiccmp items in (hamfest, local shop, etc) are
inherently local and/or specialized can't really be judged by the same
standards as eBay.  There can be more then one fair market value for
something, dependant on the market in question.  

This is why it's SO annoying to hear someone try to bargain at a hamfest by
saying "but I could get 10 times that on ebay!"

- Dan Wright
([email-masked])
(http://www.uiuc.edu/~dtwright)

-] ------------------------------ [-] -------------------------------- [-
``Weave a circle round him thrice, / And close your eyes with holy dread,
  For he on honeydew hath fed, / and drunk the milk of Paradise.''
       Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Kubla Khan

---

From: Martin Scott Goldberg <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed Apr 30 14:27:01 2003

>Dan Wright <[email-masked]> says:
>

This is something that the video game community has been grappling with
for some time as well.  More often than no however, the solution is to
form some sort of official price guide (which this list should consider)
based on a survey of Ebay prices.  Ebay still presents a valuable
resource, because it makes it much easyer to research selling prices of an
item than calling all over and trying to keep track of sales without the
net would be. Generally though, you want to report three prices in such a
listing - a high, low, and average selling price for the item.

>saying "but I could get 10 times that on ebay!"

I'm reminded of a story on the r.g.v.c. newsgroup of someone who came
across someone like that at an indoor flea market.  The seller was using
it to justify their rediculously high price.  The newgroup member had
their laptop (equiped with cellular modem) with and proceeded to pull up
an ebay auction for the item in question.  He then began to showing it to
people just outside the booth in question, in protest claiming the seller
was of course a scam artist.  The seller became irate, but security
wouldn't do anything about it since the guy wasn't breaking any laws
showing it to people.  He also was not in the guy's booth area.  The
seller quickly closed down his booth and went home "for the day".