The ones that got away..?

Perditaspursuits

Perditaspursuits

Registered Guest
Have you ever bid for something and missed on EBay, or spotted something at a sale, fair or even thrifted... gone away and lost it forever?

I guess it's like fishing- the 'one that got away'.

The other day I was sniped on EBay bidding on a 1960s dress- seller didn't realise Horrockses was collectable :wow22: ...but the label was there in the photos and it checked out design wise. Only one other bidder, went for 5p more than my upper bid. :violins: 'The one that got away' for me... would have been both perfect for my collection and absolute bargain of the year.

Anyone else want to confess any near misses and get closure?
 
The thing is with ebay, that the system encourages you to think that all it would take is another 5p, but the reality is that you don't know how high the other bidder has gone.

I don't often bid on ebay any more, but I generally bid as high as I can and then forget about it: I don't bother putting repeat bids on, because if my high bid isn't high enough, there are always plenty of other ways to spend my money. I've often bid high and watched as other bidders put repeated and small increments on - the item will go to high bidder, for the bid only a little higher than the second highest bidder regardless of how much the high bidder puts on it. It's probably rare that another 5p would "win" you the item.

There are things that I wish I had bought, generally bargains like yours, but there are so many beautiful things in the world and never enough time and money to buy them all. As a dealer, I like to buy nice things to share with my customers, that's where I get my pleasure. Each nice thing is lovely for a while but soon there will be another lovely thing.

Sometimes I tell my customers about a red silk velvet '30s dress that I passed up in '88, that for a long time I wished I had bought - but it wouldn't fit me any more anyway, and now I have another four or five red silk velvet gowns.
 
This edged up in the last 2 seconds, 1p at a time- it was most likely an app which adds by-the-penny bids. More fool me for not using one myself really, but as you say with that kind of thing I'd most likely end up with things I wasn't sure about. That's the main reason I don't use them.
 
I've never used sniping software but I wonder: what if several snipers were all bidding at the same time? Do they all get processed simultaneously or do some miss out when time runs out? It seems a common thing to do - no bids at all until the last few seconds and then *bam*
 
I don't buy much on eBay anymore but I always snipe, and I always set my snipe at the amount I am willing to pay and then walk away. Once in awhile I will get an alert that the bid amount has passed my snipe and "IF" I really want the item I might raise my bid.

If there are a lot of snipes at the last minute I think they are counted in the order they are received. I use a "free" service so my bid is not placed at the very last second and I could be "out-sniped" and have been!

When I first started buying on eBay, I was outbid for a Mazer Bow brooch. Eventually, and it took years, I found the piece and bought it from a dealer at a jewelry convention I attended :

Mazer%20Bow%20Brooch.jpg


Linn
 
Hi,

Well, I confess if I want something really bad, I always always snipe it, or else I will not win it. If I don't snipe, I rarely win anything anymore. Nicole is right, the final winning price can be way off of the actual winner's highest bid placed. I once placed a bid for over $300.00 for something and I won it for $22.00. The #2 bidder probably thought "If only I had bid to $24 I might have won it". No way! So, you can take comfort in thinking that even if you bid much higher, you still might have lost that dress.

As far as near misses, there are too many to count!
 
That's an interesting question! It could be quite risky for them if they don't set a highest bid (apparently you can do that- turn OFF highest bid- my husband has once, luckily costs did not spiral as it was for a PS2 game he just 'needed' but wasn't rare) because I suppose it could start some kind of snowball effect , albeit over a minute or two.
CircaVintageClothing said:
I've never used sniping software but I wonder: what if several snipers were all bidding at the same time? Do they all get processed simultaneously or do some miss out when time runs out? It seems a common thing to do - no bids at all until the last few seconds and then *bam*
Click to expand...
 
Oh dear... almost feel like i shouldnt respod to this thread due to what a sad vintage loving person I am and how stupidly upset i get when i miss out on things. I've been known to go into full blown sulks for days afterwards when I haven't won something on ebay. Although my all time miss was a Horrockses (unsuprising seeing as I have a collection of around about 50 of the things). It basically incurred that I asked my Mum to bid on it for me as I was at work. I clearly explained to her that there was "no limit". She could bid as high as she wanted because i NEEDED it for my collection. Unfortuantely for me, she couldnt remember what I had said I would bid up to and when it got to £200 she stopped bidding as that was all she felt it was worth. It was perhaps the best Horrockses print I have ever seen (A Pat Albeck Sophia Fedorovitch print) and i would have willingly gone to £500 on it, perhaps more. I didn't speak to her for DAYS afterwards, and despite the fact that this must have been over a year ago I still think about that dress regularly and that despite all the lovely other Horrockses i have in my collection that was the one i always wanted the most.
 
I was thinking the same as Nicole, we could have a 'Missing pieces' or 'Most Wanted' thread for the escapee items.
 
This is the print of the dress I was talking about if anyones interested. It is the print on the left of this image (with the ladies in crinoline style dresses) I also had a chance to purchase one in the print on the right, but at the time i didn't have the money for it and I didnt love it quite as much as the Sophie Fedorivitch print on the left!
2-017.jpg
 
I despise sniping for several reasons the worst being that it creates bad blood, especially when eBay didn't hide who the other bidders were and you could also snoop at what other people were bidding on. I commented earlier about how I wasn't a fan of Hamish Bowles, because he sniped me on several occasions, and once for something I REALLY wanted for my 40s book, and I wrote and asked if I could have a photograph of the item and he didn't even deign to respond. Sorry we can't all have trust funds like you Hamish!
 
Oh no! I can just imagine my mum doing something like that too (although she has more sympathy for my collecting habit than for my dad's house-filling stamp collection! If only because mine fills my house not hers!). I am quite strict and set myself limits, otherwise my bank would be empty and my house full. I only buy things I can fit into, would/could wear (so even if they are mainly a collection item, I could use them) and I can afford within that month without a credit card. Haha, even given that I have a serious dress addiction.
AdvantageInVintage said:
Oh dear... almost feel like i shouldnt respod to this thread due to what a sad vintage loving person I am and how stupidly upset i get when i miss out on things. I've been known to go into full blown sulks for days afterwards when I haven't won something on ebay. Although my all time miss was a Horrockses (unsuprising seeing as I have a collection of around about 50 of the things). It basically incurred that I asked my Mum to bid on it for me as I was at work. I clearly explained to her that there was "no limit". She could bid as high as she wanted because i NEEDED it for my collection. Unfortuantely for me, she couldnt remember what I had said I would bid up to and when it got to £200 she stopped bidding as that was all she felt it was worth. It was perhaps the best Horrockses print I have ever seen (A Pat Albeck Sophia Fedorovitch print) and i would have willingly gone to £500 on it, perhaps more. I didn't speak to her for DAYS afterwards, and despite the fact that this must have been over a year ago I still think about that dress regularly and that despite all the lovely other Horrockses i have in my collection that was the one i always wanted the most.
Click to expand...
 
I confess to not liking sniping either: it turns an auction into 7 (or 10) days of advertising followed by a short, sharp auction. I can't help but feel for the sellers, who have no idea whether anyone wants to buy their goodie or not (watchers mean nothing, I suspect their other prospective sellers wondering what the item will go for).

My preference is to avoid auctions on ebay altogether, somehow it's easier and less painful if a seller puts a price up and then you can decide if you'd like to buy it or not. I can't be bothered waiting the time to see if I "win" or not. There's always so many other things to do.
 
I have stopped buying on Ebay ages ago - because of snipers... that was way back when I was still buying a lot of Barbie dolls for my collection, and occasionally something would come up that I absolutely wanted. Usually it ended with me being outbid at the last moment, with the bids just going beyond my budget. This just frustrated me, to say the least. Later I occasionally bought from dealer's ebay shops, at fixed prices, when there was something new that I wanted. For vintage fashion though, I go for VFG member's online shops, Etsy - and brick & mortar shops. Ebay is just too much of a nuisance - having to wait for a week etc. etc. And then of course, US auctions tend to end at ungodly hours for me over here in Europe, and I can't stay up all night or do Ebay at work or whatever...
My only good experience with a bidding war just before the end of an auction was with a collectible Barbie doll I sold myself. Not even NRFB, I had removed her from the box for display, but sold her about 10 years later, in the box I'd kept. I'd offered her first on an email list where nobody reacted. So I put her on Ebay, and the guy who ended the bidding war (and, it seemed, had really really wanted her) turned out to be someone who subscribed to the same mailing list too - I guess he had just missed my post. So I ended up selling her at what would have been her original price when new - only I had already bought her on sale at half price. Not a bad deal in the end!

Karin
 
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