PCGS ain't so perfect after all..

"Dave Hinz" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 19 May 2006 16:13:28 -0400, Richard L. Hall
wrote:

"Harv" wrote in message
...

I've been buying and selling on eBay since 1998 and have gotten some
very
surprising money for many things I've sold. But I NEVER start anything
at
a
dollar. There's a distinct possiblity that eBay could go down just as
my
auction is closing shutting out the snipers and I'd end up actually
having
to sell something valuable for peanuts.

I'll remember that if I ever try to sell something on Ebay.

Hm. I'm not sure I'd be concerned about that these days. Let's put it
a bit more strongly. I am not concerned about that, and just listed
that 21-D walker starting at $0.99 - why? Why not.

If you have something of limited demand, that you'll get one or two bids
on, start the bidding at what you'd settle for if you only get one bid.

Sometimes you only need one bid. There are certain items that I specialize
in, I know the collector market for those items, I know what they sell for
at specialty expos and shows, and I have bought those items many times from
sellers who were totally ignorant of their value for next to nothing, gotten
them, shot better pictures, re-listed them with better pictures, lavish
descriptions, put a "Buy It Now" price on it of literally 25x what I paid
for it and gotten a sale within an hour. These weren't coins and no, I won't
say what these items are. These are certain paper ephemera items. I saw one
sell yesterday for just under $70.00. The seller hyped it up as rare, which
it legitimately is, but he started it at $9.99. I've paid as little as
$10.00 for one and turned it around for $250.00 the day after I got it.

If it's something that historically gets a dozen or more bids, start it
low to build some momentum is my thinking. As far as downtime - I know
some about the internals that were changed after the little incident I
think he's referring to. And, if they _were_ to go down (because I
know, even the best redundantly-designed system can fail), I'd end the
auction of a high-value piece and re-spin it once they get their stuff
together.


I still get eBay page loading errors, as recently as last week I was
reloading my seller's list and got a page that said "that function is
currently not avaiable" repeatedly for a couple hours. This was an
eBay-generated page, not a ISP network "that page cannot be found" 404 type
error.

So they might have beefed up the redundancy in their system, but it still
fails randomly, occasionally, and I still don't trust them and I still won't
start an auction at a dollar. Do what you like.

Harv

On Fri, 19 May 2006 20:51:31 GMT, Harv wrote:

"Dave Hinz" wrote in message
...

If you have something of limited demand, that you'll get one or two bids
on, start the bidding at what you'd settle for if you only get one bid.

Sometimes you only need one bid. There are certain items that I specialize
in, I know the collector market for those items, I know what they sell for
at specialty expos and shows,

Right. That's a case of, probably, limited demand (and presumably,
supply). For something fairly common, where there's 5 to choose from at
any given time (or 500, try buying a used iPod), things even out pretty
quick.


and I have bought those items many times from
sellers who were totally ignorant of their value for next to nothing, gotten
them, shot better pictures, re-listed them with better pictures, lavish
descriptions, put a "Buy It Now" price on it of literally 25x what I paid
for it and gotten a sale within an hour. These weren't coins and no, I won't
say what these items are. These are certain paper ephemera items. I saw one
sell yesterday for just under $70.00. The seller hyped it up as rare, which
it legitimately is, but he started it at $9.99. I've paid as little as
$10.00 for one and turned it around for $250.00 the day after I got it.

Nothing wrong with that. I had one WLH that went sky high, and I
_still_ don't know why. 1918 or something, forget specifically, but two
people just went _nuts_ on it. (shrug) Maybe they knew something I
didn't, or maybe they were both just attacked by the fever.

I still get eBay page loading errors, as recently as last week I was
reloading my seller's list and got a page that said "that function is
currently not avaiable" repeatedly for a couple hours. This was an
eBay-generated page, not a ISP network "that page cannot be found" 404 type
error.

OK, fair enough.

So they might have beefed up the redundancy in their system, but it still
fails randomly, occasionally, and I still don't trust them and I still won't
start an auction at a dollar. Do what you like.

Seems like a reasonable approach, either way.

"Dave Hinz" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 19 May 2006 16:13:28 -0400, Richard L. Hall And, if they _were_
to go down (because I
know, even the best redundantly-designed system can fail), I'd end the
auction of a high-value piece and re-spin it once they get their stuff
together.


Couldn't do that all the time. If your auction ended while they were down,
it was over and a winner declaired.