Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Its pretty unusual to see an auction take 21 bids to finally reach the reserve and for that to be the exact selling price thanks to a snipe. However, that unlikely scenario describes the theater made 509th patch which was the best patch to sell on WWII eBay over the last couple of weeks. For my money I probably would have gone after the Deathheads squadron patch just because its too cool. The rest of the Top-5 is pretty diverse - everything from a plastic Polish badge to a ridiculously large mixed lot.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
In putting together this Top-5 list I had to cut out items that also ranked in the Top-5 for the entire WWII category. Using those guidelines you can still find 5 items that sold last week in the United States subcategory that scored over $1,500 in bidding on eBay. The lead-off man is an A-2 jacket in excellent shape. The pilot spent some time in the China/Burma theater based on the seller description. But the real interesting sale was the M3 knife. This auction was sitting at $1,000 with thirty seconds to go when things got crazy. Within the last 1/2 minute of the auction sniper bids came in from 8(!) different bidders which doubled the sale price and landed this as the #2 item on this list. The USMC pin proved that its always good to have an insurance bid coming in over the top. The winning bidder was sitting pretty when a sniper bid came in $750 above his bid. However, following the old Scout adage to "Be Prepared" he had his own snipe locked and loaded that carried the day.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
You know something is good when three bidders chase it over $5,000 and the last day sees the final sale price spike by fifteen hundred dollars! Its been a long time since I've seen a blade not made in Japan sell for north of $7k on eBay so you might want to check out the classic V-42 Stiletto to see what all the fuss is about. Is it just coincidence that the same model of knife rang in at the #2 position this week albeit with considerably less fanfare. With edged weapons taking the top 3 spots you know one of them had to be a Japanese sword and this one represents that niche well. But perhaps the most intriguing item is the battle flag from a US Navy submarine. That is what I would put on my wall if I wanted to spend a couple of grand on a piece of history. The bomber jacket reminds me of a fad in the late 1980s when these jackets were the coolest things for teens to wear - my high school sweetheart had one that I would sometimes "borrow" from her.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Would you start a Japanese Samurai Sword at a minimum bid of just $1? Well I guess if you were confident that it was going to sell for over $2k with thirty bids then maybe - why not!?. This Top-5 list has a little bit of diversity in it considering that it includes a pair of navy binoculars and a tanker's helmet. If you take a look at the bidding pattern of the Navy binoculars you will see that it was just two bidders willing to take the auction over $1500 and the winning bidder came in with a pair of strong shots in the last 25-seconds to steal the win. My question about the helmet is did this really offer much protection? I guess if you were inside of a hot armored vehicle maybe it wasn't as important that your helmet be able to stop a bullet.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
I don't know that I've ever written about an auction in this blog that registered 65 bids like the "Russian rare medal" did to place #1 in the best selling items in the Russian subcategory of WWII eBay. If you take a closer look you will see that 22 of those bids came on the last day of the auction including a pair of insurance bids from the eventual winning bidder. Its ironic because several of the other listings in this Top-5 list didn't see any bidding competition to speak of. The two unique medals that sold were both offered by the same seller with an incredible minimum bid price of $0.99!
