AW: [meteorite-list] ebay sniping

[Nicholas Gessler]

Sniping 210:

Snipe bidding is hardly for folks with "yardsale mentality."
Snipe bidding is not necessarily to the buyer's advantage.
Hi ticket items, in the thousands, are often bought by snipe bidders.
Check out the history of the bidders in an auction you're really interested in.
Many of the more experienced snipe bidders do not make placeholder 
bids; they only bid at the last minute.
You don't know who you're bidding against, which also prevents 
collusion (agreement among bidders as to who will bid to win).
Snipe bidding is like bidding blind.  It is more like the classic 
sealed bid auction.
As a snipe bidder you have to bid as much as you are willing to pay.
There is no playing one-upmanship over the next highest bidder.
Quite often snipe bids are 2 to 3 times the high bids that were 
placed only moments before.
"You makes your choices and you pays your money..."

Three snipe bidders in this auction in the last minute:
http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewBids&item=6632367708
Two of them had not bid before.

Two snipe bidders here in the last minute:
http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewBids&item=8824427759
One had not bid before.
The price went up $2000 in the last minute.

It's not unusual...

Cheers,
Nick
(Posthuman)