Thursday, December 17, 2009
Bidding wars that is. I searched the German subcategory of WWII on eBay and was looking for items that attracted a lot of bidding. The top two items I dug up are good case examples of how interesting bidding patterns can be on prized collectibles. In the case of the rifle scope one of the losing bidders was a real cheapskate! He came up against a high bid and tried 39 times to dink his bid just above that previously placed bid. At first he tried increments of $2 and then he got brave and started putting in bid increments of $5. After entering over three-dozen bids in this manner he gave up. The auction also saw two snipes come in during the last ninety seconds but they didn't have enough firepower to win. The winning bidder had placed his bid a comfortable nine hours before the close and it held off all challengers. In the case of the helment engraving the action took place near the end. In the last hour there were 8 bids from 4 different bidders. However, this item had a reserve price and that marker was finally met with about 35 minutes to go. The winning bidder even entered another higher bid for insurance but it was not needed as he was the only person willing to go above the reserve price. These five that I've picked represent a sample of the interesting bidding wars that have taken place recently in the WWII category.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
When looking for the items that have received the most bids recently in the Great Britain subcategory of WWII on eBay I expected to find some heated action. I wasn't disappointed. In the case of the RAF jacket there were two bidders going head to head in the final day. These two bidders combined to put in 28 bids as they jostled for control. The losing bidder actually recorded 16 bids in his effort to win it. However, he must have been asleep or disposed at the end because the winning bidder locked up the victory with about 7 hours to go and even entered a higher insurance bid later just in case. A similar story unfolded in the auction for the Vickers items. The difference is that this pair of bidders saved all their action for the last minute of the auction. Somehow between them they recorded a dozen bids in the final 60 seconds. The winning bidder managed to get in two consecutive bids in the final three seconds to win the joust. I've also pulled some other items that had intense bidding from the category so you could see that sometimes its not the most valuable items that sell that have the most action on eBay.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Have you ever thought of an eBay auction as a little bit of aerial combat as in the old fashioned dogfight? Well if you ever take time to go back and look at the bidding history of items sometimes there is an interesting story to tell. Take for example the two items I found that received the highest number of bids in the Japan subcategory of WWII on eBay. The General's sword came down to only two bidders who were willing to cross over the $1,500 mark. The lead changed hands four times in the last 24 hours of bidding in a classic tug-of-war. With the Shinto sword it became a sniper attack. Four different bidders came in with bids in the last four minutes adding nearly $1,000 to the final purchase price. The winning bid arrive with 30 seconds to go and demolished the competition. Check out these five Hot Finds picks that sold recently arranged by the high number of bids they received.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
If you look in the German subcategory of WWII on eBay you will find that "Personal, Field Gear" is the 2nd most popular area to list items next to photographs. Some of these items can be very intriguing so I decided to search and find what were the top selling items in that niche.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
I posted earlier about Japanese swords and collectors obvious fascination with them. However, if you take a broader view and look across the entire WWII category on eBay you will find plenty of top selling blades that are worth a look. In this post I've featured a real mixed bag I put together of the top selling edged weapons across all the subcategories. Click the link to see more information about each item.
