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The Unofficial Underbidders Venting Thread

Started by BCarter27,

21 posts in this topic

oceans11

oceans11

Posted
Posted

Ahh, yeah, I'm getting killed on ebay auctions lately and am routinely outbid. What's worse is I was kind of delaying on a piece of art that I was interested in, that was on a dealer's site, to see if I won that last ebay auction. I lost the auction (by five dollars, damn it) and went to the dealer's site and discovered the page of art I had been eyeing there had been sold. Just not my month.

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Rodey

Rodey

Posted
Posted

I've been outbid on every Mark Bagley New Warriors art that has popped up in the past year. A bunch of other collectors have popped up.

 

Don't they know who I am? (A man with a slim wallet)

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malvin

malvin

Posted
Posted

I've been underbidder a lot.

 

It is what it is. All you can do is bid your max and if you lose (especially as the underbidder) you have comfort in knowing that you made the winner pay an honest price :)

 

Plus there is always other art that comes along.

 

Malvin

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tth2

tth2

Posted
Posted
I stopped bothering with Heritage. I'd win 10 or so pieces on the online auction only to lose by the next bid increment on the live auction. It's been nothing but a waste of time for me the past year or two.

Sounds like you need to do a bit of price reconnaissance, although it might cost you a bit to do it once.

 

Next time before an auction ends, determine what your normal maximum online bid would be, and then enter an amount that is double. Then you'll be able to see just how high your opponent is willing to go.

 

If you consistently crush your competition, you might drive them out of the market thus lowering your cost in the long run. The guys who've been beating you consistently in the past appear to have done exactly that.

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Brian Peck

Brian Peck

Posted
Posted

I have been bidding on auctions for a long time. It comes down to what you are willing to pay for a piece. I have been the under bidder on alot of art, two stick in my mind, X-Men #9 Marvel Girl splash by Kirbey and Flash Gordon and Dale by Frazetta and Williamson both I really wanted to add to my collection. But I had a decided on an amount before the auctions and stuck with it, was the underbidder on both but with no regrets. As Malvin said there is always more out there.

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alxjhnsn

alxjhnsn

Posted
Posted

There is only time that I was the underbidder that has even a halfway decent story associated with it. Here's that story.

 

To help you understand the emotional impact of this tale, you should understand that The Legion is my favorite set of characters (Superman is my favorite single character) and Curt Swan is my favorite comic artist. I got my first Legion (Adventure 326) while in the hospital at age 8 for six weeks due to pneumonia. I have no doubt that my young mind was deeply impressed by the books that my dad brought me and the artists featured in them.

 

Anyway, my "grail" has been a Curt Swan piece featuring a lot of Legionnaires inked by Curt or George Klein for quite sometime.

 

In 1986, ICG published The Official Legion of Super-Heroes Index. Either of the first two covers would qualify as the Swan/Legion "grail" for me. Those covers are:

3861292-img_losh1.jpg3861293-img_losh2.jpg

 

Look at all that Swan/Legion goodness!

 

I didn't see these issues until long after they were published because I had a comic collecting hiatus. It wasn't until I started buying comic art (2005-ish) that I saw those images and thought how great it would be to have one of them on my wall. Since I had no clue as to where they were, I didn't really worry about it too much.

 

Not long after that (2008), Brad Meltzer decided to raise money to save and restore Jerry Siegle's boyhood home - the real birthplace of Superman.

 

One of the pieces placed for auction was this one:

 

Curt%20Swan_Legion_Index_2_cover.jpg

 

 

You can probably imagine how excited I was. When the auction came around, I bid not just stupid (for me) money, but horrific (for my wife - we had three daughters in college) money to try and get it.

 

I felt pretty good about the bid and was sure that I'd win it and then - wham - I was beaten. I had time to raise the bid, but not the stomach.

 

Sigh... At least, I helped raise a bunch of money for a good cause, right? :)

 

Not long after the auction close, the image was posted to the CAF. With that I discovered that I was bidding against David Mandel. If you've never visited his collection, click the OA image above and indulge yourself. It's clear that his pockets were deeper than mine; if I'd known I might have bid more just to help raise funds. :) (No probably not)

 

I also found out from David's description on the OA that David was involved in the auction and Mark Waid had offered this piece and one other to Brad for the auction. Brad asked David which to accept. David picked the Swan piece. David is smart!

 

This past year, Mark Waid was here in Houston for a signing and I talked to him about the auction. Turns out that he also had the other cover (#1) and that it was now in the possession of a friend of his. Sigh ... So, close.

 

Still, it's nice to know that both pieces have good homes.

 

Don't feel too bad for me. I do have a few pieces as consolation prizes. :)

 

This one I really like since the inker worked hard to give it the feel of the original story (click to embiggen):

 

ZlZoYHjn_1306151942551.jpg

 

and this wonderful pencil piece:

Swan,%20Curt%20-%20Superboy,%20Mon-El,%20and%20Shadow%20Lass.jpg

 

I'm content. :)

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Brian Peck

Brian Peck

Posted
Posted

There was also the Fantastic Four #286 cover along with the interiors I have been trying to put back together. I was on HA and I was the underbidder. Again went to what I felt I wanted to pay for it, no regrets. I ended up picking up "How To Draw Comics The Marvel Way" from a seller on the same weekend as I lost out on the FF #286 cover.

I have been enjoying "How To Draw Comics The Marvel Way" much more than I would have the FF cover.

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AKA Rick

AKA Rick

Posted
Posted

The problem with being the underbidder (i.e. 1st place for losers) is that although let's say you bid $9,000 and the next bidder was at $10,000 and it's $11,000 to you, but you decline and it sells for $10,000... first off, the lowest you could have then gotten it for is maybe that same $10k if you'd placed that bid, or maybe $11k as the next bid, but you'll never know how much further up the winning bidder would have gone from the point where you stopped the bidding war. Maybe that piece would have gone for $20k, so in that way you can't really have true regret stating a price you could have gotten a piece for.

 

I think Brian is right in going into auctions with a gameplan and sticking to it. Put a price tag on every item you're interested in (incl. buyers premiums if applicable) and that's your maximum with discipline. I'd love to practice that preach myself at times.

 

I've had incidents where I got caught up in the frenzy of bidding, thinking it's only an increment higher, saying that a couple of times and the next thing you know I get a "congratulations, you've won the item!" to my somewhat regret for maybe overpaying or the sticker shock of just how much/many pieces you've bought out of impulse.

 

 

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Brian Peck

Brian Peck

Posted
Posted

When I won the Williamson Flash Gordon in the recent HA auction last month. I had a price I was going up to but when I saw the piece in person the ceiling went up. Amazing how seeing something in person compared to seeing it online or a scan can effect your opinion.

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glendgold

glendgold

Posted
Posted
I love this thread. I'm still mad about the 1993 Sotheby's auction.

 

The Captain America 108 cover specifically? Yeah, sorry about that one buddy! :devil:

 

Scott

 

I left out the part about how being mad caused me to take vengeance. :sumo:

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JadeGiant

JadeGiant

Posted
Posted

I was underbidder on a comic link Hulk pages a few years ago that stings still today. I bid at the last minute an amount way above where it was going at the end but still got beat. I would have paid more and was a good lesson to make sure I go all in with any late bids so I don't have any regrets.

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