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I just placed a bid (in one of the current auctions) on a card similar to a card I currently own. I did this because it is currently too cheap and I would be delighted to own another at its current price. How many times do you find yourself bidding in an auction to protect a card you own? By the way, I did not do this to run up the price, rather to own another and cost average my investment. If I don't end up with it, then I guess I helped myself anyway.
It sounds like you didn't do so in your case, but bidding on another instance of a card with no intent of owning it for the sole purpose of pushing up the sale price, smacks of shill bidding. The difference between the two is that instead of taking the profits from the current sale, you'll get the profits when you sell yours.
I'm sure it happens all the time and many have no issue with it, but it always smelled funny to me.
Dan - I think your thread title is what's causing the confusion - you're bidding to own AND to protect; I think the questionable ethics part is when you're only purpose is to protect.
I think the issue is if you bid on a card you don't need just to keep the price up, and of course we assume you don't own it, then how does it differ than if you bid on a card you do need? In either case you either win it and pay the bill, or get topped by somebody else and drop out.
If you think the card is worth say $1000 and it's currently sitting at half that, why wouldn't you bid?
Matt- You are absolutely correct, although I think it is samantics. The answer is - I think I bid for both reasons. I wanted to make sure if the card sold for X, that it would be mine. I don't think that I was trying to run up the price as much as I wanted another at 1/2 the price as my last one.
Barry - could the same argument be made with regards to shill bidding? If you think the card you are selling is worth $1000 and it's currently at $500, why wouldn't you bid $600?
As I mentioned above, a case can be made that the only difference between the two is that you directly get the profit from shill bidding and you only indirectly get the profit when you sell your other copy with the above.
Bidding on your own card is shilling, make no mistake. But if you see a card going cheap in an auction and you already have one, why not bid on it? You are allowed to own two of the same card.
"Dan, this is a hilarious thread, truly. The more significant question to ask is: have you ever bid on your own cards to protect your cards?"
I would think that happens more than most people think. Along those same lines, I would bet that most "sold" cards in auctions are manipulated, unsold, shilled, or never get paid for, leaving us sold prices that are not valid.
Dan, I think a very small percentage of realized lots in both Mastro and REA will not be the result of some form of shill bidding. It's like cheating on your taxes: lots of people do it thinking that "everyone does it, so what's teh big deal?" And no one thinks they'll get caught -- until they get caught.
Barry - agreed - it's a question of intent - same as shill bidding. With shill bidding you could argue that I see a card going for half price, why not bid - I'm allowed to own that copy of that card, it just so happens that I am the seller. The issue is that with traditional shill bidding your intent is to avoid a loss - if you're bidding for that same purpose over here, then I think you're in the gray.
Bidding to raise the price with no intention of winning is an equivalent to shilling. Bidding with the hope of winning and willingness to pay the bill is fine. What the initial poster describes deserves no apology, he has perfect right to try and win a second one.
I doubt single handedly 'propping up the market' works. The investor can't survive forever on his own bids.
This message has been edited by dereb12 on Apr 29, 2009 8:37 PM This message has been edited by dereb12 on Apr 29, 2009 8:33 PM This message has been edited by dereb12 on Apr 29, 2009 8:32 PM This message has been edited by dereb12 on Apr 29, 2009 8:24 PM
In Dan's case, he wants to purchase another card, so no one can accuse him of anything unethical. However, if one of the main motivations for bidding is to drive up the price of like cards, then there is certainly something wrong. I have a feeling that there is a large percentage of collectors who bid in this fashion to protect the value of cards that they own. In fact, this kind of activity by dealers and collector is probably one of the main reasons why prices for cards have not fallen dramatically in the past year.
Matt- completely agrre, it is a matter of intent and good faith. If you don't own a card and are an eligible bidder, you are free to bid on it for any reason whatsoever, and no auction house will ask you to explain why you are doing so.
"If you don't own a card and are an eligible bidder, you are free to bid on it for any reason whatsoever, and no auction house will ask you to explain why you are doing so."
I'm sure you also agree that just because the house lets you doesn't make it ethical.
Hi Jeff,
I've been busier than a one armed paper hanger lately.... I've been traveling, raising kids, and changing my computer system at work, so cards have taken a back seat. I even skipped going to the Final Four for the first time since 2005 when the Heels last won.... (My Mom is still pissed at me for not taking her). Luckily I was at the Masters for a couple of days of relaxation.
I hope you and the family are well....
I thought Jack gave you his old set before he took office???? You wouldn't be running up the price to secure your investment... would you? That O'Henry candy bar chick will pay anything for those clubs...In fact she'll walk around half topless for them... smiley Brian
"Along those same lines, I would bet that most "sold" cards in auctions are manipulated, unsold, shilled, or never get paid for, leaving us sold prices that are not valid."
Is THAT why we keep seeing such high prices in auction after auction in a down economy?
Hey Brian - Welcome Back. How the hell was your sedar ?
Barry - Have you seen George Costanza & his girlfriend in the Hamptons ? What was she wearing ?
back to the question at hand...I have done this once...years ago...for the same reason. I owned the same, scarce card...the price seemed way below market...so I bid on it as I'd have been happy to own another at such a low price...It's not the same as shill bidding in my opinion.
Ultimately...I did not win the card! In my opinion, this is no different than placing a bid on any card...in any auction situation that you are interested in...at the current price.
This message has been edited by ullmandds on Apr 30, 2009 8:20 AM
I have thought about it - - but I have never done it.
i'm not sure if it really protects your card value.... rather it just makes you more heavily invested in a card that is decreasing in value.
That being said....
there are cards that I own multiples of.
but each time I buy one it is because I want another one (not to protect a value).... and actually I would prefer values going down on the card (so that I could spend less).
You can look at each lot as an individual transaction. You are free to bid on anything that seems to be undervalued. If you just happen to already own the same card, so what? Buy the second one as an investment.
Barry - I'm not sure I understand your stance - above I thought you agreed that depending on your intent, it could be unethical to bid in such a circumstance (if your sole purpose is to avoid taking a loss on your other copy of that card). What you just said seems to mean carte blanche to bid regardless of intent
As I said above you can use that same logic to justify traditional shill bidding:
You are free to bid on anything that seems to be undervalued. If you just happen to be the seller of that card, so what?
If you consign a card you are not eligible to bid, or to ask a friend to bid under any circumstances.
If you do not own a card and choose to bid on it, you do not need to explain why you are bidding. Nobody cares. If you win it you pay the bill. If it starts getting pricey you drop out. What else is there to say?
Too much analysis and too much paranoia here. And I am done on this thread. And no private emails please. Thank you.
I think it's a worthwhile discussion. If I recall correctly Lew Lipsett had a sizable article discussing it in a mid 1970's issues of TTS. I think he called it Market Price Manipulation or something like that. Regards.
I think Barry summed it up perfectly. I've been trying to decide how bidding on a card you don't own is unethical in any case and have come up empty.
The difference between this and shilling is in how it relates to another bidder. If you bid on your own card or on behalf of the owner, you drive up the price to a single (hypothetically) independent bidder. If you bid on a card that you don't own and aren't bidding on behalf of the owner, then you are legitimate competition and the subsequent rise in price to another bidder is part and parcel of auction basics - bids raise prices.
So as long as you don't own the card or are bidding for the owner and will buy it if you do happen to win it (even if you did not bid with the intention of winning it), then your intent for bidding is 100% irrelevant. You are a legitimate bidder making a legitimate bid.
It doesn't matter if you bid to raise the price, to stay on the active catalog mailing list, to place a bookmark, give the card to your Aunt Fanny, collect a duplicate or decopage it onto the side of a coffee mug.
J
This message has been edited by jmk59 on Apr 30, 2009 11:58 AM
I want to pose a devil's advocate question though. You mentionend that as long as you aren't bidding on a consignors card with them knowing it, then it is ok. Let me first say I have NEVER bid on a friends card in auction for them....(had to get that out of the way, as at least someone in this thread probably can't even say that currently).
Lets say my friend "Bob" has a card and wants me to bid on it for him as he doesn't want to sell it so low. Lets say I bid and I win...I then send the money to the auction house and get the card. Is that wrong? I dunno...but it's an interesting thought....
Actually, I wouldn't have that much of a problem if the owner of a card wins back his own card in an auction. Changed mind, protecting investment, whatever - he bids he wins.
Where it goes south quickly for me is when an owner bids on his own card and doesn't win it. In the case where there was only one other bidder that topped the owner, the price has been artificially and deceptively driven up.
The key issue with me is that deceptive part. The single bidder thinks he was in legitimate auction competition with another independent bidder and that that's why he ended up at the price he did. If he could have ended up at a lower price but for the owner's bids, then he has been decieved and that crosses the line.
The problem is that if an owner bids and does not win, you never know if he legitimately was trying to win his card back or if he was just trying to goose a few more dollars out of the system. For this reason, my line is no owner bidding at all b/c you can't separate the two circumstances even though I think the owner-buy-back would be okay in its own right.
As to the friend Bob, that's just as bad as the owner bidding since it is pretty much done as an attempt to avoid the rules about sellers/consignors bidding deceptively.
"Bob" seems to be getting a bad name lately
I went to a seminar in New Orleans last weekend and one of the speakers was discussing online solicitation and he said, "Suppose 'Bob' was actually a sexual predator..." Yikes. Everyone at the table glanced at my nametag and laughed. Bob (or Robert) used to be a very common and popular name for boys in the 50's-80's but now with all the newborns getting Biblical names or Deons or Treys or Skylers etc., the Bobs, Pauls, Johns, Dicks, Toms and Bills of the world are fewer and fewer.
Just for the record I have never bid on my own card or asked anyone to bid on one of my cards, but I agree with Pete U and Barry 100%.
"My name is Bob and I am a card collector."
"Hi Bob..."
This message has been edited by tbob on Apr 30, 2009 1:32 PM
If I can get a double of a card on the cheap of course I will bid on it. It is smart investing, not shilling. Shilling is driving up the price of your own card in an auction. In other contexts, buying a second item as the price drops is called "dollar cost averaging."
I suddenly wanted a beer---Hi Bob reminded me of the college drinking game when everyone watching the Bob Newhart show had to take a drink anytime someone said 'Hi Bob" which was frequently---off to get a beer ---"Hi Bob"
Did Joann check with Bruce 3 times or three different Bruces only once? I'm confused.
I've bid on cards like cards I have before in major auctions but generally placeholder bids in the event that they go on the really cheap. It obviously depends but it becomes increasingly more difficult to 'protect' your card's value the closer you get to it and the more risker for having a second card at a value potentially higher than the market. I've won a couple before and just held on to them till another more advantageous time to resell them.
Shillers don't want or intend to win. Their bids are fake bids. If someone bids with the intention of winning (of course he may lose as he's outbid by others) and pays the $$ if he wins, there's no issue.
If a collector thinks a card should be worth $100, and is willing to buy the card any time if falls below $75, there is nothing errant or wrong. He may overestimate the value and end up as the proud owner of many copies of that card purchased for $75 each. Ten years from now, the card may turn out to be the next Pinkerton Cabinet or Dog's Head variation and collectors will marvel how he picked them up for dirt cheap.
This message has been edited by dereb12 on Apr 30, 2009 4:25 PM This message has been edited by dereb12 on Apr 30, 2009 4:21 PM
But in this case the primary intention seems to be propping the price in order to justify an earlier price paid for a card. Winning the card seems to be the secondary motive in which somebody "sort of" wants a card, but protecting an "investment" seems to be the primary motive.
I look at that scenario as my possibly preventing a fellow collector from getting a card that they may want, and unless I'm buying something expressly to trade why on earth would I need more than one of a card? That is especially true since in a case where you're trying to protect an "investment" that means the card is likely quite scarce and would be kept out of the hands of fellow collectors for some time if I were to hoard it.
That is simply my personal philosophy, and obviously everyone is free to apply whatever principles they may want to that situation. As long as whoever is buying the card pays the bill what they do is up to them.
I do believe though that just because you CAN do something doesn't mean that you should.
If you saw a very valuable card you already have being auctioned at $20 and it was unquestionably legit, would you bid on it? I don't think anyone here could honestly say "no"; the deal is too good to pass up. Unless you can honestly say that no matter how good the deal you would never acquire a duplicate card, the sanctimony on displaye in regard to this issue is hypocritical.
Bottom line, if you bid on an item that isn't yours and if you have the risk of winning, your reasons for bidding are irrelevant. You're either going to win the item or get topped. If someone else doesn't want to top your bid, that is not an ethical problem: it is one of market interpretation. One or the other of you is misjudging the card's value.
As others have already said, there is no ethical problem with bidding on a duplicate card that seems to be going for an unusually low price. True, the intention is to sell it, along with the card that you already own, for a substantially higher price. But that is not immoral in a market economy.
So there is no difference in picking up a legitimate deal and propping up the price of a card? That is like saying there is no difference between a pineapple and an orange - both may be fruits, but place them next to each other on a table and the difference is obvious.
Obviously results of auctions do not list the intent of the bidder, nor should they, and it has pretty much been established that people can do what they want with their own money.
There is no sanctimony on display in this thread whatsoever...just people stating what they think is right. Others will justify actions in any way they please.
Unless the card being auctioned is yours (in which case you are shill bidding), the idea of propping up the price of a card at auction simply doesn't hold water. The price on the card at auction is dictated by the interaction of two or more bidders, not by one bidder. You will either win it at your bid, in which case the "market" is your bid price that you were willing to pay, or you will be topped, in which case the "market" is wherever the card closes. Either way, the card reaches an actual sales price.
The only time it makes sense to accuse someone of propping up a card price in a bad sense is if he is shilling his own auction, which is already unlawful, against every auction rule, and universally decried.
Sic Gorgiamus Allos Subjectatos Nunc
Current Topic - Have you ever bid to protect your cards?
