Old Candidates: Silliest Auction Prices of the Year • Page 89 • Collecting General • The Acaeum

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Old Candidates: Silliest Auction Prices of the Year
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Gnat the Beggar
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Posted: Sun Sep 08, 2013 4:50 pm

faro wrote in Old Candidates: Silliest Auction Prices of the Year:
aia wrote in Old Candidates: Silliest Auction Prices of the Year:

** expired/removed eBay auction **
/?orig_cvip=true

i'd say it's simply doubled...

I'm actually a bit surprised they accepted that offer (sold at $1,350).

First offer from buyer was quite a bit lower.

Buyer sent more than one offer and counter offers were sent in both directions.

Negotiations took a few back and forth messages.

Do not think the final price was too high, after all when will we see another copy?

I think these have always been under valued here and elsewhere.

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Thunderdave
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Posted: Sun Sep 08, 2013 5:05 pm

That's about as iconic an RPG item there is... right there with a woodgrain, first PoVQ, what else? Speaks right to D&D's origins as a wargaming spin-off... Collectible and a heck of an investment I'd say... I wish I had my act together to have bid on it

Nice pick up for sure!

I draw the line at collecting... D&D beach towels.

Shoulda been: ".. from Pangreenia to Floratopolis, from mystical Treeonia of spectral Forests to Schruborial dimensions." - The Forests of Leng

dbartman
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Posted: Sun Sep 08, 2013 9:35 pm

That's got to be a mistake. But, even another auction he has up has pretty high shipping:

** expired/removed eBay auction **

SimperingToad wrote in Old Candidates: Silliest Auction Prices of the Year:Wow! What shipping info is this guy looking at?

** expired/removed eBay auction **

Zenfinite
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Posted: Sun Sep 08, 2013 9:49 pm

dbartman wrote in Old Candidates: Silliest Auction Prices of the Year:That's got to be a mistake. But, even another auction he has up has pretty high shipping:

** expired/removed eBay auction **

SimperingToad wrote in Old Candidates: Silliest Auction Prices of the Year:Wow! What shipping info is this guy looking at?

** expired/removed eBay auction **

Ebay just does not care about shipping costs. Well, I take that back. For some reason, some categories are limited as to how much you can charge for shipping; ours is not one of those categories. So, in OUR categories, eBay does not care about shipping charges hehe.

Zen

aia
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Posted: Mon Sep 09, 2013 9:15 am

faro wrote in Old Candidates: Silliest Auction Prices of the Year:
aia wrote in Old Candidates: Silliest Auction Prices of the Year:

** expired/removed eBay auction **
/?orig_cvip=true

i'd say it's simply doubled...

I'm actually a bit surprised they accepted that offer (sold at $1,350).

..errr: how do you get the info of the final value in case of offers accepted? i have never been able to track down this info... :oops:

Gnat the Beggar
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Posted: Mon Sep 09, 2013 11:04 am

aia wrote in Old Candidates: Silliest Auction Prices of the Year:
faro wrote in Old Candidates: Silliest Auction Prices of the Year:I'm actually a bit surprised they accepted that offer (sold at $1,350).

..errr: how do you get the info of the final value in case of offers accepted? i have never been able to track down this info... :oops:

Excellent question.

"Guys, I am starting to think Tegel Manor might be haunted..."
Stated by me as a PC during a run of Tegel Manor DMed by killjoy at NTRPGCon 2010

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dbartman
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Posted: Mon Sep 09, 2013 12:37 pm

I'd be curious too. Even if you know the buyer's eBay alias, which could be acertained in this case, eBay doesn't disclose the selling price.

Perhaps inside information from the seller or buyer...

Blackmoor
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Posted: Mon Sep 09, 2013 12:59 pm

dbartman wrote in Old Candidates: Silliest Auction Prices of the Year:I'd be curious too. Even if you know the buyer's eBay alias, which could be acertained in this case, eBay doesn't disclose the selling price.

Perhaps inside information from the seller or buyer...

The hard way to do it is to look under sold items on ebay, list from highest price down without shipping costs. Ebay will show the list from highest to lowest but not show the sell price for "best offers", it will place the item won with the best offer in the proper place in the list.

IE if the BIN was $2500.00 and the best offer accepted was $1300.00 then the item will be in the sold items list in where a $1300.00 item should be, let's say between a $1400.00 item and a $1200.00 item. You will not see the exact price sold but you can make a very accurate estimate of what it went for. The item will still show that a best offer was accepted but not the actual offer.

Games can get you through times of no money but money can not get you through times of no games!!

faro
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Posted: Mon Sep 09, 2013 4:28 pm

Blackmoor wrote in Old Candidates: Silliest Auction Prices of the Year:The hard way to do it is to look under sold items on ebay, list from highest price down without shipping costs. Ebay will show the list from highest to lowest but not show the sell price for "best offers", it will place the item won with the best offer in the proper place in the list.

Take a gold star!

Yes; so much for eBay being good at keeping secrets? I'm surprised there haven't been (m)any visible complaints about this given that they try to make it look as though the "best offers" are hidden nowadays but in reality they're not.

It's not that hard really; y'just need to cast the net wide enough to get a decent granularity - first page of Games and Toys | eBay after Aaron's somewhat flaky late 1st print woodgrain. ;p
Goes without saying it was obvious who won, so I didn't need to say anything about that. 'Grats; nice win. I'd expected $1,600+ to be required regardless of the currently stated "estimated value": there's only one printing rarer (*jk*).

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dbartman
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Posted: Mon Sep 09, 2013 5:32 pm

That's pretty cool, I never thought of that method! But then again, there haven't been a lot of times that I've wanted to know that badly.

It is irritating the lengths that eBay goes through to conceal certain information for dubious reasons. Why isn't the "best offer" sales price something that should be completely transparent? I'm not sure what that would impact.

My guess is that eBay wants to prevent a negative effect on pricing due to negotiated deals. If the only readily available sales data is from auctions or BIN sales, they avoid potential price erosion and keep eBay more "auction" centric.

Perhaps a better reason is that eBay implemented the "best offer" capability to reduce the frequency of off-line deals occurring where eBay doesn't make anything off of the purchase. This might be more plausible since they also have incorporated numerous measures to limit the ability to contact others outside of a normal eBay transaction, including blocking email addresses in eBay correspondence for our own "safety". Whenever a person, company or the government indicates they are doing something to protect us from ourselves, it's just a facade to cover up a means of controlling/manipulating us.

Okay, I'm stepping off of the soapbox.

Anyone else have a better theory, or an actual reason, for the concealment of this information?

FoulFoot
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Posted: Mon Sep 09, 2013 6:29 pm

My two cents: by not making the actual "best offer" sales price readily available, it gives the impression to a casual browser that an item sold for the full listed price. (Indeed, if you watch one of the eBay Auction Previewer links on here, when a fixed-price item sells for a best offer, the sale price eBay is reporting to my code is the original fixed price. Completely. Ingenuous.) Ergo, a third party's impression is that the "worth" of this type of item is higher than it actually is. Sort of a similar situation to a web site with RPG pricing information purposely inflating values in order to artificially skew the market higher.

Ack, I better be careful here.

In any case, while the benefit of higher overall market values to an RPG website is somewhat nebulous, a higher overall market for eBay directly translates into increased profit. And that consideration, of course, drives everything.

Foul

dwarf
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Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2013 2:14 am

Ok it is uncommon, but $695...

Is this the asked price or an error?

With a factor of ten less, it would be a good deal

** expired/removed eBay auction **

dwarf
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Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2013 2:30 am

another crazy price from NK

** expired/removed eBay auction **

With a bit of patience, this can be purchased for less than $100, maybe less

throwi
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Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2013 9:11 am

dwarf wrote in Old Candidates: Silliest Auction Prices of the Year:8O

Ok it is uncommon, but $695...

Is this the asked price or an error?

With a factor of ten less, it would be a good deal

** expired/removed eBay auction **

dwarf,

Unless I'm mistaken, these are much rarer than uncommon. If complete, these are impossible to find. I've been watching for these for years and only a handful (less than 5) have shown up on eBay, with all but one of them complete. This one has been for sale for awhile - I believe NK bought it from a collector at highest bid, only to turn around and sell it for double. Is it too expensive? Yes. But as collectors, we know that rarity can drive pricing and this one is no exception. Someone will eventually snag it... likely not by you or me. ;-)

On a side note, I've seen many of the 'character sheet' items rise in price lately - especially those that are complete. getting harder and harder to find copies that weren't used. To think of all those books I had years ago that i pulled one copy out to use.

~throwi

Gnat the Beggar
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Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2013 9:37 am

dbartman wrote in Old Candidates: Silliest Auction Prices of the Year:I'd be curious too.
Even if you know the buyer's eBay alias, which could be acertained in this case, eBay doesn't disclose the selling price.
Perhaps inside information from the seller or buyer...

As the buyer (several of you know anyway) I can tell you that Faro's price is dead on.
Faro's method (thank you Blackmoor for the explanation) for finding the price paid was also dead on.

The book was shipped and has already arrived and though obviously not near mint.... I am pleased with it.
As for the price, I think it was fair (though higher than the Acaeum suggested NM Price).
As indicated in my last post, the amount was negotiated after a few offers from both sides, so it was not my first or even second offer than won the book.

"Guys, I am starting to think Tegel Manor might be haunted..."
Stated by me as a PC during a run of Tegel Manor DMed by killjoy at NTRPGCon 2010

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Thunderdave
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Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2013 9:57 am

I think you picked up a winner Gnat, congrats!

I will put one on my list as well

I draw the line at collecting... D&D beach towels.

Shoulda been: ".. from Pangreenia to Floratopolis, from mystical Treeonia of spectral Forests to Schruborial dimensions." - The Forests of Leng

Badmike
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Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2013 10:45 am

Gnat the Beggar wrote in Old Candidates: Silliest Auction Prices of the Year:
dbartman wrote in Old Candidates: Silliest Auction Prices of the Year:I'd be curious too.
Even if you know the buyer's eBay alias, which could be acertained in this case, eBay doesn't disclose the selling price.
Perhaps inside information from the seller or buyer...

As the buyer (several of you know anyway) I can tell you that Faro's price is dead on.
Faro's method (thank you Blackmoor for the explanation) for finding the price paid was also dead on.

The book was shipped and has already arrived and though obviously not near mint.... I am pleased with it.
As for the price, I think it was fair (though higher than the Acaeum suggested NM Price).
As indicated in my last post, the amount was negotiated after a few offers from both sides, so it was not my first or even second offer than won the book.

I saw it last weekend, while not mint by any means it is in nice shape with no glaring problems. I would have paid what Gnat paid (If I had that kind of money to invest/spend) based on it's rarity and condition (better shape than most I have seen sell the past few years).

Mike B.

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cabala
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Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2013 6:27 pm

dwarf wrote in Old Candidates: Silliest Auction Prices of the Year:another crazy price from NK

** expired/removed eBay auction **

With a bit of patience, this can be purchased for less than $100, maybe less

Agreed, and for that matter it is more expensive than easily the last 5-10 SW versions that have sold. I know because I am still looking to grab one. I get so tired of NK and T&T listings among a few others. I've never dug into it but I wish I could filter them out of searches.

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