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The Official The Walking Dead Discussion Thread
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Started by MutantKeys,

40,452 posts in this topic

jjeanius

jjeanius

Posted
Posted
This just ended:

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/The-Walking-Dead-issues-lot-1-45-1st-prints-NM-/180972930975?pt=US_Comic_Books&hash=item2a22d3c79f&nma=true&si=DnRbkgE%2FLFRNgQMoxRKdOMviUPQ%3D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

 

I'm a bit stunned it went for this much and the collection is only the first half. I would expect 1-100 to reach this level. Are we seeing prices escalating again? Or is this an anomaly?

 

seems fishy

 

Shill?

 

Doubt it. Both bidders placed competitive bids within the last three minutes of an auction. Just because an auction does well doesn't mean it was shilled.

 

certainly has all the familiar symptoms of shill bidding.

 

Really? Which symptoms would those be, exactly? Both bidders were bidding in the closing seconds, and from the bids placed, it certainly looks like both bidders were trying to WIN the auction. If you are trying to shill, you are trying to LOSE the auction. And...$2600 would have been a solid result on that lot, so any seller should be happy at that point...but there are EIGHT bids above that dollar amount.

 

Why is it so hard to think that two people both wanted this lot badly enough to drive up the price? Why is it EASIER to believe that something nefarious happened, even when there is no clear-cut evidence to back up your suggestion of shill bidding? Whatever happened to Occam's razor? Shilling is not the "easiest and most likely explanation" here.

 

To be clear, I'm not the winner, not the loser, not the seller. It just frustrates me when baseless accusations are thrown around with no supporting evidence whatsoever.

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Phill the Governor

Phill the Governor

Posted
Posted
This just ended:

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/The-Walking-Dead-issues-lot-1-45-1st-prints-NM-/180972930975?pt=US_Comic_Books&hash=item2a22d3c79f&nma=true&si=DnRbkgE%2FLFRNgQMoxRKdOMviUPQ%3D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

 

I'm a bit stunned it went for this much and the collection is only the first half. I would expect 1-100 to reach this level. Are we seeing prices escalating again? Or is this an anomaly?

 

seems fishy

 

Shill?

 

Doubt it. Both bidders placed competitive bids within the last three minutes of an auction. Just because an auction does well doesn't mean it was shilled.

 

certainly has all the familiar symptoms of shill bidding.

 

Really? Which symptoms would those be, exactly? Both bidders were bidding in the closing seconds, and from the bids placed, it certainly looks like both bidders were trying to WIN the auction. If you are trying to shill, you are trying to LOSE the auction. And...$2600 would have been a solid result on that lot, so any seller should be happy at that point...but there are EIGHT bids above that dollar amount.

 

Why is it so hard to think that two people both wanted this lot badly enough to drive up the price? Why is it EASIER to believe that something nefarious happened, even when there is no clear-cut evidence to back up your suggestion of shill bidding? Whatever happened to Occam's razor? Shilling is not the "easiest and most likely explanation" here.

 

To be clear, I'm not the winner, not the loser, not the seller. It just frustrates me when baseless accusations are thrown around with no supporting evidence whatsoever.

 

It's very clear that you're frustrated lol .

 

Maybe I'm more skeptical than others? Maybe it was a legitimate auction where two people really wanted the books. When I see books like this, and by "like this" I mean currently very popular books, sell for more than they usually do there's bound to be a little skepticism in my head. My reasoning is my opinion based on a sale above current "market value" on the hottest modern books, with bidders that have low feedback.

 

I never said it was, without a doubt, a shill auction, just that there's a chance that it could be. (shrug)

 

What's your supporting evidence that the time the a bid is placed makes it a legitimate bid, and not a shill? I don't think that has anything to do with it.

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jjeanius

jjeanius

Posted
Posted

When you are shilling an auction, you are trying to do one of two things:

 

1.) Push the high bidder up even further, if you think for whatever reason that they haven't approached their max yet

 

2.) bid enough to effectively set an invisible "reserve" on your auction so that someone would then have to come back and outbid you in order for you to sell the item.

 

In case #1, you do not try to outbid the other person, just nudge them up a bit to achieve a higher selling price. In this case, you would not bid someone up, get outbid, and then run them up again the closing seconds, especially when you are already getting a great price for your item.

 

In case #2, you would do this early on in the auction, so that you can, in fact, be outbid. This approach would not work in the closing seconds of an auction.

 

And, as I already mentioned, all of this bidding took place well after the auction had hit a "reasonable price". From what I can tell, this lot *should* be worth about $2600, give or take.

 

The price might be 20% higher than that, but then, nothing ever goes up in value unless/until someone is willing to pay more than FMV in order to acquire it. Prices go up all the time in this manner. None of these books would be worth anything otherwise.

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Phill the Governor

Phill the Governor

Posted
Posted
When you are shilling an auction, you are trying to do one of two things:

 

1.) Push the high bidder up even further, if you think for whatever reason that they haven't approached their max yet

 

2.) bid enough to effectively set an invisible "reserve" on your auction so that someone would then have to come back and outbid you in order for you to sell the item.

 

In case #1, you do not try to outbid the other person, just nudge them up a bit to achieve a higher selling price. In this case, you would not bid someone up, get outbid, and then run them up again the closing seconds, especially when you are already getting a great price for your item.

 

In case #2, you would do this early on in the auction, so that you can, in fact, be outbid. This approach would not work in the closing seconds of an auction.

 

And, as I already mentioned, all of this bidding took place well after the auction had hit a "reasonable price". From what I can tell, this lot *should* be worth about $2600, give or take.

 

The price might be 20% higher than that, but then, nothing ever goes up in value unless/until someone is willing to pay more than FMV in order to acquire it. Prices go up all the time in this manner. None of these books would be worth anything otherwise.

 

I know how shills work, and I understand what your saying. I'm simply questioning exactly what you already stated: all of the bidding took place well after the auction hit a reasonable price.This means one of two things:

 

There are two or more people who really want to win and disregard FMV for the item. We all know this does and can happen.

 

or

 

Like you said, the "invisible reserve" that the seller had on the auction wasn't met, and in the the closing minutes of the auction they had shill bids put in so they didn't have to sell it for less than their "invisible reserve". Again, we all know that this too does and can happen.

 

When you thrown in the fact that, like you said, the lots FMV is 20% less then the sale then the skeptical thought emerges in the back of my head.

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KONG

KONG

Posted
Posted
The zombies in the eye looked recycled from something. Another cover, a hardcover, a trade... something. I feel like I've seen them before.

 

The idea and coloring reminded me of the RV rear view mirror of 55 ? Not sure if that was the issue, don't have it front of me.

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