Hello All

I know this is a long shot but we have so many eclectic members, I thought it may be worth a try.

I have been bidding on Ebay unsuccessfully for the last few days trying to purchase a nice retro LED watch from the '70s...The main one I am trying to get is a Texas Instruments model 101. If there is any one out there in Empeg land who can point me in the right direction for a source, I would really be in your debt... here is a pic...



Thank you -

Greetings!

Wow! I haven't seen one of those in decades!!!

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I have been bidding on Ebay unsuccessfully for the last few days

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try www.esnipe.com to place your bid at the last 5 seconds of the auction. i hate it when i get outbid like this but if you REALLY want something, i'd suggest trying this...it worked well for a *friend* of mine a few times.

I use esnipe almost exclusively for ebay bidding. The best reason to use it is to create a false sense of worthlessness. If I don't have a bid placed on an auction, people have no idea I'm interested in the product. So, interested parties tend to not watch it as closely when there is little interest.

I love when someone bids on something with 6 days left and it gets no other attention until the snipe. They must be like "WTF... I was the high bidder for 6 days, then this mofo places a bid with 5 seconds left!!!" Those are the best.

Bummer is, that exactly how I last both watches I was bidding on...I doubled my bid to $120 (it was sitting at $60 for three days with no upward movement) with the sole purpose of ensuring I was going to get it....some ahole sniped me at the eleventh hour and it was long gone...I was sooooo pissed. I assume he was a collector because he had won bids all over the place for these watches.

The only good way to buy anything on ebay is to bid at the last minute. I hate seeing people bid at the beginning because it just inflates the price.

I never have used any software to do it thought I just watch it at the end.

I hate seeing people bid at the beginning because it just inflates the price.


With respect, I totally disagree.

When people bid throughout the auction, there is time to reflect on how much you are willing to pay, and whether to up your bid when necessary. This means that the final price is reflective of how much someone is willing to pay for it. That is the *entire* point of an auction, and necessary for the auction process to be attractive to sellers, and hence to get the supply of items that buyers want. That's not 'price inflation', just supply and demand.

Price inflation is more likely to occur at the end of the auction, when someone who's been winning for 5 days suddenly gets outbid with 5 minutes left in a flurry of bids. There is no time to determine what the real interest level is, and irrational bids get made to try and regain control.

Re: esnipe:
What happens when everyone uses esnipe for the same auction? I assume that the highest bid would win. But what happens if 2 or more people both put down the same highest bid amount through esnipe? Who wins. I'm guessing whoever bid first. Sound familiar???

Eventually everyone will have to resort to esnipe to stand a chance of winning, and in the long run, if everyone used esnipe for every item, the process would end up being near identical to ebays standard bidding process, so what's the point? Except of course, to pay that extra 1% esnipe tax.

I have no problem with manual sniping. If you're prepared to pay attention to your auctions, and make the effort, then fair play to you. I have to make the same effort to protect my bids, and if I don't, then that's my problem. But automated sniping is lazy, cowardly, and ultimately pointless IMO.

automated sniping is lazy, cowardly, and ultimately pointless IMO.

• Lazy... yes in most cases
• Cowardly... I see where you're coming from, but I don't think that's the right word
• Pointless... Not unless you are lazy

There are plenty of that people don't want to pay for a Windows sniping program or pay the Esnipe fee. There are also people that don't know about automated sniping. So, there will always be people sitting there at 5AM when an aucion ends trying to win. Truthfully, I will manually snipe if the item is that important since I only trust ensipe for nick-knacks and stuff I don't want to watch all week.

That said, most of the stuff I win with esnipe are things I could live without. I also use it as a bookmark for good auctions. If I want to place a bid that can easily be retracted, esnipe is great. It gives me time to think over an item without forgetting where or what it was. Esnipe, for me, is well worth whatever it is they charge. Just my opinion.

What happens when everyone uses esnipe for the same auction?

I was under the impression that ebay had a "going going gone" period at the end of each auction, so that if there was a flurry of activity at the end, it would extend the end time of the auction until everyone finished getting all of their bids in.

Of course, I haven't bid on anything in a while, so they might have changed this since the last time I bid. But if it's still in effect, then all that esnipe is doing is adding another layer to the transaction, and everyone hanging around at the end of the auction (whether in-person or via esnipe) is still limited by the actual maximum price they're willing to pay.

I was under the impression that ebay had a "going going gone" period at the end of each auction, so that if there was a flurry of activity at the end, it would extend the end time of the auction until everyone finished getting all of their bids in.

Nope, eBay has always ended at the exact second set when the auction was created. UBid does do what you describe, complete with a flashing "going going gone" graphic.

Ebay has done away with that policy last I heard.

Calvin

Exactly.

The correct approach to the online auction arena would be to allow each person only one bid, which is the max they want to pay. Changing this would require significant effort, and should only be if the bidder made a mistake. Then the winner pays a dollar more than the second-place bid.

This would prevent sniping, or at least make it pointless.

Which is why they won't do it. eBay makes money based on how much the seller gets and sniping, etc. increase the selling price, however unfairly they might do so.

Although your proposed plan is an interesting one, and would stop sniping and result in an orderly auction, it kind of makes it not an auction any more. By definition.

Dunno WHAT it makes it, but, if you can't re-bid, then it certainly isn't an auction any more.

It's actually just like an auction where everyone is bidding by proxy. In this case, the eBay servers would be your proxy, which is exactly what they do now. In fact, now that I think about it, it's exactly like a silent auction.

The only thing that re-bidding really helps with is if you made a mistake, or if you don't want someone else to get the item out of pure spite.

Oh, and the definition of an auction is ``a sale of property to the highest bidder'' (Merriam-Webster). I cannot find a definition that requires the type of back-and-forth that goes on in Sotheby's-type auctions.

True, you'll sometimes see sealed-bid auctions for large value stuff, eg estates, property or businesses, where you only get to bid once.

But the one bid per user would never work for ebay. It would just become an administrative nightmare, with the number of registered users quadrupling overnight as everyone found the way around it.

True. Which is why non-personal things based on personal relationships often fail. Because it's too easy to cheat, and even those otherwise disinclined to cheat often find it quite tempting because it distances the person from the act.

This is almost solely a psychological issue, and it's doubtful that any sort of technology can overcome it. The only thing that I can see that even comes close is attempting to make sure that there are no duplicate people, but even that's fraught with other problems.

Not true Tony. There are often silent auctions where everyone places bids in physical envelopes to be opened at the end. These are legal auctions.

Calvin

My Baby

The clock tower!

(Two for one every Wednesday! Large adult entertainment section in the back!)

Okay. That one went right over my head.

(Although, based on the last sentence, that may not have been the most apt metaphor. Or maybe it's too apt.)

Lockertown from "Men In Black 2".

The old pulsar LED watch was the clock tower.

Awsome watch! I imagine that it's pretty rare too, seeing how GE probably didn't make too many watches?

I am really into the retro-technology thing right now, here is the watch I finally was able to win on Ebay....

Now if I could only get an early 70's Empeg, I'd be all set ( though I guess I'd have to get a trailer to haul it around in! )

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( though I guess I'd have to get a trailer to haul it around in! )

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Not to mention several inconveniently large buildings full of drives for your music.