The end of an era . . .

[AtomSmasher]

Those six initial bids were at first a little alarming. They come from three users, each of whose usernames consist of a single letter, followed by four asterisks, and then another letter. Like o****o. Or maybe it's three asterisks. Anyway, they all follow the same convention. Which obviously can't be a coincidence. And anything that's not a coincidence is pretty much for sure a scam. But the users have high possitive feedback scores, one with like 600 transactions. Then it occured to me that maybe I'm just not a hardcore collector, cos serious collectors all creat a username that is the equivalent of a Pez dispenser emoticon. Like, first initial is the head, asterisks the body, and your last initial the feet. Anyway, hopefully that's it and I have nothing to worry about. The guy's 600 transactions seem to be exclusively buying and selling Pez, so it's probably all legit.

Ebay obscures the actual names of the bidders, so that is all you will ever see for the bidders (until theres I winning bid I suppose, where I assume you'll see the full username of the winner).

[shmokes]

Have they always done that? I'm not a huge Ebayer, but I guess I've bought and sold 40 or 50 things on Ebay and I've always checked out the bidders page to sate my curiosity about bidding war. I'm pretty surprised if they've been doing this all along and this is the first time I've noticed it.

[Vigo]

I think it has been a couple years now that has been in place. I find it annoying, and it is one of the reasons I don't use ebay as much these days. I used to check out bidders on items I was interested in, see how the bidding went with that person on previous auctions and based my bidding on that. I could routinely win items for a decent price. The minute they started blocking all user info away, I started losing and making poor bids.... 

[HaRuMaN]

Just put your bid in during the last 3 seconds...  I've won a lot of auctions that way.   

[Vigo]

Well, I do that, but I don't like losing when it is something hard to find, I don't have the money to toss out the high bids either. The last second bid leaves no room to bid again If I went too low. When I see bidding history, I can usually get a handle on what I should bid. But you are right...last second bidding is still the surest method. My mojo has just been off since they changed methods. My last auction I second guessed myself, left 30 seconds as a "just in case" safety, and ended up overpaying $200 on an old CP because the defending high bidder was really agressive. I was looking for that part for 7 years, so I am glad I got it, but damn it stung when I realized how much I paid for an old water damaged hunk of wood. 

[shmokes]

I have difficulty sniping. I'm too A.D.D. If I see an auction that isn't going to end in like the next few minutes, I have to just set a high bid and hope it's high enough. Otherwise there's no way I'll remember to go back and check out the auction just before closing. I suppose I could use a sniping service, assuming they're still around, and I have a couple times. But in general I'm not that into the process to be bothered with all that. I don't buy that much from Ebay.

[HaRuMaN]

As a seller, I can see the full names of who is bidding on my auctions.  Not sure why you can't. 

[yotsuya]

I have difficulty sniping. I'm too A.D.D. If I see an auction that isn't going to end in like the next few minutes, I have to just set a high bid and hope it's high enough. Otherwise there's no way I'll remember to go back and check out the auction just before closing. I suppose I could use a sniping service, assuming they're still around, and I have a couple times. But in general I'm not that into the process to be bothered with all that. I don't buy that much from Ebay.

I'm the same way. In fact, 9 out of 10 times when I use eBay, I get items that are "Buy It Now" combined with "Free Shipping". Less hassle that way.

[shmokes]

As a seller, I can see the full names of who is bidding on my auctions.  Not sure why you can't. 

I was sure this was the case. Very strange. And I was definitely logged in. In addition to being able to click the link to see the bidders there was a link to edit my auction. Strange.

[shmokes]

Hmm . . . musta been a glitch. Just checked my auction to find, not only that I am $1 richer than I was last night (a seventh bid!), but I can see full usernames of each bidder.

[DCsegaDH]

I also use "buy it now"  since I was tired of losing auctions by getting outbid.

[Grasshopper]

The key with Ebay auctions is to do your research first. These days, Ebay prices seem to exist in a world of their own. There are still occasional bargains to be had if you're willing to be patient (or lucky), but most of the time Ebay prices seem to be significantly higher that elsewhere. The site increasingly appears to be used by people who are cash rich but time poor, and who are prepared to pay over the odds to obtain a hard to find (but not necessarily rare) item quickly.

You also need to be very disciplined when placing bids. There are basically two golden rules - only bid once, and bid as late as possible (preferably in the last few seconds).

[shmokes]

The problem is, I agree that those golden rules are the route to good deals on Ebay. Unfortunately, they are antithetical to your description of Ebay being for people who are time poor. I don't have the time to devote to watching auctions. And you have to watch an auction to bid the way you suggest. Being time poor is one of the primary reasons that I don't frequently use Ebay.

[Vigo]

Congrats on the auction. $412 doesn't seem too shabby.

[shmokes]

Yeah thanks. It exceeded my expectations. I was thinking I'd get $250, hoping to break $300. I'd have been disappointed with under $200 but not that surprised at like $180-$190. $412 isn't too shabby at all (which isn't to say that I recouped the cost of buying all those things in the first place, but I chalk that up to money well spent for the experience )

[leapinlew]

I chalk that up to money well spent for the experience )

If you haven't paid ebay/paypal fees in a while, be prepared to enjoy some more experience.

[danny_galaga]

When I really started giving this thought was around the time I was signing up to take the bar. My intention all along was to take the New York Bar and move away from Miami after law school (hopefully to Paris, but NY or DC alternatively). But as law school was winding down, and I was going to register for the bar, there was a serious temptation to just take the Florida bar. And I realized that I felt this way largely because the thought of packing up all this stuff I had and moving it was so unpleasant.

I have all this stuff. And I value it, my stuff. I value it a lot, but why do I value it? The only thing that made 99% of my stuff special is that it was mine. And here I was, reconsidering whether I should go out and continue pursuing my dreams and gaining rich new experiences from around the country, hopefully around the world, because carrying all this stuff with me would be such a nuisance.

We decided to sell almost everything we owned. My book collection was huge. I had an enormous library of books, among which were about 30-40 Easton Press editions which are extremely nice books with the following characteristics (copied from Wikipedia):

    bound in fine genuine leather
    22kt gold-stamped spine accents
    distinctive raised spine hubs
    intricate gilt stamped cover designs
    specially milled acid-neutral paper
    Smyth-sewn pages
    gilded page edges
    endsheets of moiré silk
    permanent satin ribbon page-marker

They're beautiful. And I loved my books, beautiful and ugly, for their contents. But . . . once I'd read them, I just owned them. That's the only thing I did with them. I owned them. And maybe there is some intrinsic value to ownership, in and of itself. But maybe all the things you have and collect pile up around you and make you unable to even see some of the potentially more valuable things out there.  

In hindsight, the legal market is so bad that I probably would have been better off taking the Florida bar, getting a good job in Miami, which would have been much easier, and trying to break into the type of law I really want to practice (international arbitration) a few years down the road when the economy improves. But that's another conversation for another time, lol.

This whole thing makes me think of the brilliant speech from Up IN The Air. Brilliantly written and delivered, I mean. The message of the speech is too extreme probably bad advice in the long term, at least for most people. But there is at least a grain of truth to it.

Link to video - Embed doesn't work

your link sucks, but you probably were linking to this scene?



Great movie. Yes, extreme. If you could actually follow that mantra, you'd be a hobo!

Trailers for sale or rent...

[shmokes]

Yeah . . . that's it. When I searched Youtube I was searching for the scene in the movie in which he gives the speech. And all I could find were the trailers (which I didn't realize had the speech). Then I googled it and was led to the facebook video I linked to, which was of course a trailer, but I was apparently unable to put two and two together.

[shmokes]

A final look at the collection.

[Hoopz]

Any pangs of regret?

[HaRuMaN]

Any pangs of regret?

That comes when you see the cut that PayPal & eBay takes...   

[Le Chuck]

Any pangs of regret?

That comes when you see the cut that PayPal & eBay takes...   

Amen brother.

[shmokes]

Any pangs of regret?

No, not at all. That doesn't mean they won't come, but so far I feel really good about it. It's not indifference either. I actually feel happy to have them gone . . . like having the collection boxed up in my storage closet was subconsciously hanging over me--a thing that had to be done, something I needed to address but wasn't addressing. We'll see how I feel down the road, I guess. I'm not too worried. I think I may have already said it, but the thing is, I gave away the collection, not the experience. I still did it, and barring something like Alzheimer's, I'll always have that.

[lilshawn]

nothing stopping you from collecting something new now.

[shmokes]

Nothing, I think, except for my own philosophical evolution that contributed to getting rid of this collection. I don't think I'll ever collect anything for the sake of collecting again. If I start another collection, I think it will have to be something meaningful. For example, I was at a professor's home when I was visiting Miami in January. He had a really cool collection of unopened Coke bottles from about 25 or 30 different countries. But he's not out to complete a collection of international Coke bottles. Each bottle represented his trip to that country (with a few exceptions where friends gave him one as a gift from a country they visited). I could see doing something along those lines. But I suspect that I am done with collecting just to collect--gathering up things for no other reason than to just have them.

I mean, I'm not going to live a spartan life. There are any number of reasons to own something that isn't useful--aesthetics, sentimentality, etc. For example, when I got rid of my book collection, I kept a couple of signed Vonnegut novels I have. Because I love him and those particular books are special to me. But just collecting to collect, I'd wager I'm done with it.

[Mikezilla]

Any pangs of regret?

No, not at all. That doesn't mean they won't come, but so far I feel really good about it. It's not indifference either. I actually feel happy to have them gone . . . like having the collection boxed up in my storage closet was subconsciously hanging over me--a thing that had to be done, something I needed to address but wasn't addressing. We'll see how I feel down the road, I guess. I'm not too worried. I think I may have already said it, but the thing is, I gave away the collection, not the experience. I still did it, and barring something like Alzheimer's, I'll always have that.

Also you should take solace knowing someone else cares enough to pay that much money, and they are going to a good home where someone will take care of them. Thats kind of how I will feel if I ever sell my comic collection  . Im totally into nostalgia and my childhood etc, so Ill probably never sell em. Im not a hoarder or anything, but if I have some sort of sentimental attachment to something, I will keep it. Hell, I have all my original Nintendo consoles that my mom got me. I always sell stuff that I bought myself though, I feel bad selling something someone gave me as a gift.

On the Vonnegut novels, what are some good ones to grab? A friend and I started a conversation about what books I should read but we got cut off and she didnt get to tell me what to get. I know Slaughterhouse 5 is his famous one, but what are some others? Hell those are probably worth money now considering he passed away.

[shmokes]

I liked Slaughterhouse 5, but it's not nearly my favorite. I think I liked Breakfast of Champions, Cat's Cradle, The Sirens of Titan and Venus On the Half Shell more. There are also a bunch of highly regarded ones I've still not read like God Bless You Mr. Rosewater, Player Piano, and a bunch of others that don't immediately come to mind.

[Le Chuck]

I liked Slaughterhouse 5, but it's not nearly my favorite. I think I liked Breakfast of Champions, Cat's Cradle, The Sirens of Titan and Venus On the Half Shell more. There are also a bunch of highly regarded ones I've still not read like God Bless You Mr. Rosewater, Player Piano, and a bunch of others that don't immediately come to mind.

+1,000 to Breakfast of Champions and Sirens of Titan.  I liked the historical aspect of SH5 but really felt like Vonnegut didn't hit is full stride like he does in some of his other works.