An auction for a rare cel from a show I loved
just ended this afternoon. And even though I
could have blown away the official final bid if I
wanted to, I didn't.
In the end, it was just that a few of the tactics
that seller was using to drive up the price of
her auction really irritated me and left a bad
taste in my mouth. So even if I did win the cel
(which like I mentioned, was easy to do because I
could have bidded A LOT more), I don't think I
would have enjoyed the cel at all due to the
circumstances it was being sold.
First, I know exactly where the that cel was
originally purchased, and the seller set her
reserve price quite a bit higher than what it was
originally worth. That might not be so uncommon,
but that she was claiming in the auction that the
reserve price was "low" just made me laugh.
Then, looking at the bid history, it really does
look like a friend of hers was constantly topping
other bidders throughout the week but not on the
final day, in what seemed like an obvious effort
to drive up the price of the auction. I've heard
the term shill bidding applied to this kind of
tactic before, but I'm not that familiar with it.
I don't know, but if the seller wanted to make a
pretty profit of a cel like that, they would have
gotten one from me if they were straight and
honest with their auction. |