I kept the Rene Herse auction recently on ebay in my watched auctions out of idle curiosity. The frame was my size, but I knew it would go out of sight to Japan, and besides, Herses are much more fun with all the right Herse bits. A frame would be a nightmare to try to build up in all-Herse fashion, and I have more than enough fun in that vein waiting on me right now <g>
My question, or observation, or whatever you want to call it, is the really irrational bidding pattern you can see on the bids page. No hanky-panky implied, rather, why in the name of sanity do Japanese collectors bid up the price of these things way before the auction closes? It makes absolutely no sense, and, as an on-topic matter, it drives up the prices for things beyond what they might otherwise be if these bidders used the sane way of bidding, and sniped stuff.
See the page to see what I mean: http://ebay.com/
I know some Japanese collectors do snipe. But then you have items like this one, that get bid up and outta sight when maybe they didn't have to be.
I've heard the old canard that they were searching for the reserve. Still makes no sense to me. It's irrelevant what the reserve is if you want to pay the best price. The reserve might be way too high. It might be way too low. It might be just right, but it seems to me that doesn't matter all that much.
It may be the case that the frame would have sold for 3K anyway, even if everyone had sniped at the end. But, somehow, I doubt it.
Do these guys get into some kind of shooting contest? Who wants to waste money in that way? If I'm a seller, I love it, of course, but if I'm a buyer, it's nuts.
Ah well. Back to getting the really cool Freschi I have ready for auction. You'll like this one, very pretty, very sleek bike.
Charles Andrews SoCal
(of course, ebay should do what Yahoo has done for years: extend auctions that get bids in the last five minutes. I am still completely baffled over why ebay has not done this. I have theories, but none of my notions have any power next to the significantly greater revenues that would accrue to both ebay and sellers if they did this. Just another example of ebay's complete screwing of sellers in favor of buyers, I suspect. anyone here have any inside skinny from ebay, that might explain why ebay continues to eschew this enormous opportunity??)