Understand this about me: I am a sore loser. It is a character trait I’m not proud of, but I’ve been that way for 48 years and I’m not about to change now.
You ruined my evening.
And the way you did this was outbidding me at the last minute for the Londo prop over on the B5 auction. I wrote the episode. I conceived the idea of both the souvenir shop and the Londo doll. I wrote all the dialogue from those scenes. I’ve wanted that prop for years. And you got it instead.
So now I’m going to go off and sulk for a while. In the meantime, I seriously suggest you never, ever come up to me at a convention with them and ask me to sign them. That would be a Very Bad Idea.
Yours in pissiness…
PAD
• 
Man, that sucks. On the plus side, I have a new Londo doll comming to me that I won from some auction. I’ll be sure to send you pics, ok?
I’m sorry, I cannot bring myself to feel too bad that you didn’t get to blow $7,000 on a doll 🙂
Bummer. It might cheer you up to learn that Jewel will be at Dragoncon again this year (along with Nathan Fillion, Morena Baccarin, Adam Baldwin, Ron Glass, and some guy named Joss).
By the way, any new development on the little contest between Jewel and Nathan. Has he tried to top the Dragoncon salute?
David
Ooooooh. Cruel, TFE, cruel…even if that’s a joke.:-P
Sorry you didn’t win, PAD. Looked like a fun prop (can’t say I’ve watched any B5 to understand its involvement in the episode, so I just have the item description to go by). Upon looking at said auction, I’m reminded of a quote from one of my favorite TV shows, Friday the 13th: The Series…
I”m sellin’ it at auction. You know, the one the Briggs’s holding day after tomorrow?”
“Stay right here, I’m going to go home and break open my piggybank.”
“You got that much in your piggybank? Man, I’m in the wrong business!”
Is this thing on? *taps*
~G.
Matt, when I’m pìššëd øff about something is about the worst time you can choose to sound like my mother…
PAD
As the saying goes, everyone needs a Jewish mother. Just not two of them.
Sounds like you were “sniped”… that’s one big reason I never seriously considered playing on eBay. It’s even worse that they choose to condone it by never addressing the issue. I have other gripes about eBay (and their new property, PayPal), which I won’t air out here.
I understand how you feel, though. If I had a hand in creating something, and wanted it that badly, I’d be pìššëd as well if some ášš came along and yanked it out of my grasp using methods I felt were underhanded. I can also kind of understand how this item might me so much more to you than if it were just some random souvenir.
Wildcat
Yah, I was just BSing. Apologies. Please, don’t ban me.
Anyway, never seen an entire episode of B5, like, in my entire life. Let alone even used Ebay. (I’m still in awe over the fact you can transfer money over the Internet now. Wow!) Someone give me a quick rundown on how a doll works into the equation.
This reminds me of when I was outbid on some pages of original comic artwork that I very much wanted because I had enjoyed the stories very much when I was younger. I later found the pages available for sale at much higher prices at the website of an internet comic art dealer. I researched him a little and found he has a prolific history of winning comic art auctions at the last possible second. I suspect he uses bidding software to bid so precisely, and then resells the pieces for profit. I was a little bitter about the whole experience. So much for finding good deals on eBay.
I notice Peter, that you were outbid by more than one person. That’s gotta hurt.
Lynn
In a word…OUCH.
I keep trying to decide for myself if sniping is a Bad Thing, or just part of the game. I suppose I’m okay with it because there’s plenty of gamesmanship in live auctions as well. And all auctions come down to one simple question: “who’s willing to place the highest bid?” If you’d put in a bid of $100,000, and Pookie101 was only willing to go as high as $99,999, you’d own those puppies.
Your family would be eating Top Ramen for about nine years, and it’d take about that long before your wife would let you move back in from the garage…but you’d still have those two props. 🙂
And snipers have often prevented me from paying Holy Grail money for items that were, I later realized, merely Grail-shaped. I put in one single bid for the highest I’m willing to go, and if I’m outbid…well, hëll, it went for more than I was willing to spend. The snipers remove the temptation to keep upping and upping and upping my so-called “maximum.”
As the saying goes, everyone needs a Jewish mother. Just not two of them.
I’ve said the following a number of times: “I’ve one wife, and one mother; I don’t need another of either.”
As the saying goes, everyone needs a Jewish mother. Just not two of them.
I’ve said the following a number of times: “I’ve one wife, and one mother; I don’t need another of either.”
My condolences, PAD.
And yeah, sniping can be a hassle. I remember, Valentine’s Day week 2003, I was bidding on a run of Supergirl (1-74, plus the issue of Superman where Krypto rips out Mongul’s throat). The auction ended on at about 11 PM on Friday the 14th, which as some of you may recall was also the opening day of the Daredevil movie. I went to a showing with some friends, and then we went to a donut place to hang. I checked my watch, realized what time it was, and literally broke every traffic law Atlanta has getting back to my apartment in time to place one last bid to ward off snipers. I made it from Lavista and Cheshire Bridge to Emory’s Clairmont Campus in about 10 minutes. I’m lucky all the cops had better places to be than anywhere along my route.
I did win the auction. The journey of the comics to my door… that’s another story.
I went to eBay and found the auction. I e-mailed the high bidder (pookie1001 not pookie101) and directed them to this site in the hopes that maybe they will be willing to part with it.
Well, at least you’re being up front about being petty, and for understandable reasons.
How could Ebay address the ‘sniping’ issue? Forbid people from bidding in the last 5 seconds? Well, then, the snipers would set the programs to bid in the last 10-5 second period.
Sounds like you were “sniped”… that’s one big reason I never seriously considered playing on eBay
And you’re one less person getting in the way of the rest of us then, because only whiners complain about sniping. 🙂
I e-mailed the high bidder (pookie1001 not pookie101) and directed them to this site in the hopes that maybe they will be willing to part with it.
And, to be honest, if I were the high bidder, I’d probably tell you to go to hëll.
Now, it sucks for PAD that he didn’t win the auction, but, man, gimme a break: harrassing the winner (because, that’s what you’re doing) over it?
Ðámņ, and I thought the price was already past the limits in the $2000 range.
What happened to the Bear?
I just wanted to add, for the sake of argument, that it looks like PAD tried to snipe, and was outsniped by two other people.
And none of the three are very good snipers. 😉
Just goes to show: bid once, bid late, bid the max you’re willing to pay.
And to expand upon my comments a few minutes ago: there is NOTHING wrong with sniping. PAD could be just as irked if somebody had offered up that winning bid 5 minutes after the auction started.
But that’s how eBay works: it’s not a “going, going, gone” auction. You get to bid any time between when the auction begins, and when the auction ends.
And there is no guarantee, whatsoever, that a sniper is going to win the auction just because they waited until the end.
Yeah, what happened to the bear? I only saw one episode of B5 and that was it – I watched it just for the bear…._I’d_ bid on that!
How could Ebay address the ‘sniping’ issue? Forbid people from bidding in the last 5 seconds? Well, then, the snipers would set the programs to bid in the last 10-5 second period.
Well, would you could do is not arbitrarily shorten the auction by preventing any bidding in the last X seconds of an auction, but rather, you set it up so that the auction automatically extends if there’s active bidding activity at the auction’s close until that activity subsides (i.e. until there’s a certain interval between active bids.)
So say there’s an auction that’s scheduled to end at noon on Thursday. If it’s noon on Friday and nobody’s bidding (or “sniping”) then the auction ends. If there is active bidding, then the auction is continued for a certain interval–say ten seconds. So if a sniping bid is placed at 11:59:59 on Thursday, the auction’s automatically extended for another ten seconds, allowing for additional bids. If/when ten seconds pass without an additional bid, then the auction ends.
I think some (less travelled) auciton sites have such a system. On the one hand, that sort of system might more closely simulate the “going, going, gone” of a traditional live auction. On the other hand, if you believe that sniping’s no crime–that you should bid your absolute maximum and if you’re outbid you should be content that the item sold for more than you really wanted to pay–then there’s no reason to implement such a system.
But there are things you could do.
I never understood the problem with sniping. I put in exactly what I am willing to pay for an item. If someone bids higher (even if it’s last second), they were willing to pay more than I was. Not much I can do about that.
I understand how you feel, I’d probably feel the same if it was me. It was a very good episode.
I looked at the bid history. I bid before you so you were trying to snipe too. I didn’t use any sniping program, just stayed up till 5am and waited.
I wanted to own a part of babylon 5, I bid and I won. Sorry.
I think some (less travelled) auciton sites have such a system.
And thus you know why they are less travelled auction sites. 😉
As a seller, I would never use a GGG (“going, going, gone”) auction if given the choice.
On the other hand, if you believe that sniping’s no crime–that you should bid your absolute maximum and if you’re outbid you should be content that the item sold for more than you really wanted to pay–then there’s no reason to implement such a system.
Which is the way people *should* be using eBay. But they don’t, for whatever reason.
People just like to demonize snipers for doing what’s legal and what anybody is allowed to do.
Btw, I just watched an auction end. The winning bidder was the only bidder, and they put in their bid 2 days ago. See? It can be done.
I would’ve sniped, but the seller doesn’t take Paypal. 🙂
“Sounds like you were “sniped”… that’s one big reason I never seriously considered playing on eBay.”
Actually the real sniper was some other person who came out of nowhere in the last sixty seconds. I was trying to increase my bid and collided with them putting in an identical bid at the same time. So I got an unfamiliar error message on ebay and by the time I figured out what was going on and tried to adjust, it was too late.
PAD
Kathy-
The Bear was given to Peter and used in an episode of Space Cases so I don’t think it will show up on auction.
Kathleen
“I went to eBay and found the auction. I e-mailed the high bidder (pookie1001 not pookie101) and directed them to this site in the hopes that maybe they will be willing to part with it.”
I wouldn’t take it even if they offered it. It’s theirs.
PAD
Apr-19-05 20:35:38 PDT was the time for Pad’s first bid
Apr-19-05 20:42:39 PDT is Pookie’s first bid.
Pookie bid first 7 minutes after Peter did and then ran the bid up to Peter’s Max then Peter upped his max. This is was not snipping. Peter was the high bidder until 20:42. Pookie bid and Peter responded just as if this was live and there was a paddle being held up.
Kathleen
“I looked at the bid history. I bid before you so you were trying to snipe too. I didn’t use any sniping program, just stayed up till 5am and waited.”
You know, before I was pìššëd øff, and was fully admitting that it was from pettiness on my part. But now you’re actively lying and that’s making me angry.
I never accused you of sniping. I said you beat me out in the last seconds, which is true. You, on the other hand, accuse *me* of sniping, which is not true. You also say you bid ahead of me, which is also not true. Check the record again. I put in my bid minutes before you ever surfaced.
PAD
And just for the record, “sniping” is something very specific. It’s those people who show up for the first time in the last thirty seconds or so and try to outbid the high bidder by, like, ten dollars–maximum grab for minimal outlay. I didn’t do anything resembling that.
PAD
I didn’t do anything resembling that.
I dunno. Bidding for the first time with 11 minutes to go has at least got to somewhat resembling sniping. 😉
All in all, as I said, it was bad bidding on everybody’s part: PAD, for not waiting to really try and snipe it, all three of you for bidding repeatedly and not just putting in a single bid and seeing what happens. 😉
Maybe that’s an auction option eBay should allow: you get to put in a single bid, and no bids are displayed until the end of the auction.
Sure, you won’t know until the end whether you won or lost, but none of this sniping and rebidding, etc.
And just for the record, “sniping” is something very specific. It’s those people who show up for the first time in the last thirty seconds or so and try to outbid the high bidder by, like, ten dollars–maximum grab for minimal outlay. I didn’t do anything resembling that.
That’s another specific complaint about sniping that I don’t understand. Why wouldn’t your goal be “minimal outlay”?
By definition, nearly everybody who wins an eBay auction pays less than their maximum bid for the item. Whether my winning $120 maximum bid was placed five days or five seconds before the close of the auction, I sure don’t feel guilty when I send off a check for $37.50.
I apologise. I looked at the order of previous bids, not the times. However, theres still about 5 minutes difference.
“It’s those people who show up for the first time in the last thirty seconds or so and try to outbid the high bidder by, like, ten dollars–maximum grab for minimal outlay. I didn’t do anything resembling that.”
Neither did I.
[MODERATOR: Note Peter never said you did and even sited that you didn’t do that. There was a third party at the end of the auction that was neither you nor Peter. We’re all fine on these points.]
I got mad a couple times when I first got sniped on eBay, but now I shrug it off. If I see something I want, I bid my max and forget about it. If I win, great. If not, then that’s life.
The way I look at it, if I get sniped, then (a.) I underbid, or (b.) The person who outbid me has some serious “stupid money,” and they probably would have beat me out in a conventional auction anyway.
That being said, I understand the one-of-a-kind nature of your lost auction item, and for that, you have my sympathy.
I’ve never been a big fan. Recently I checked my history. Last time I used it was in ’99. Mainly because most of the stuff I’m really interested in (books, movies) I can find elsewhere on the ‘net for sale for less than they go for on ebay.
That said, there have been a few things (Buckaroo Banzai props and wardrobe) that I would’ve loved to had but finances precluded me from even taking a stab at it.
BTW – am I the only one that the finds the ‘Preview’ button totally useless here? Does nothing when I try and hit it.
Chris
Amazing that PAD wanted this item so badly but didn’t make his first bid the maximum amount he would be pay for the item and still be satisfied with his purchase. Sounds like he ruined his own evening.
Eh, what surprises me is that JMS didn’t offer the props to Peter before the auction. I guess it just slipped his mind.
-Joe
You have my sympathies, totally.
Without getting into specifics, quite a few years ago, I was being outbid for a pair of items that had sentimental value at a charity auction at a club event that almost everyone knew I wanted and knew *why* I wanted it.
Everyone except the person outbidding me.
And the kicker was, he didn’t even *want* the items!
He just wanted to drive up the price, not to be an a-hole, but because he knew the money was going to a good charity, and the higher the bid, the more money the charity got.
A bunch of us *tried* to explain to him why wer were trying to bid for the items, and he was just clueless and kept rebidding. Eventually, he won the items, but I bought one of the parts from him.
It cost me a chunk of money for the weekend, and I wish I had gotten the complete set. Dang.
Amazing that PAD wanted this item so badly but didn’t make his first bid the maximum amount he would be pay for the item and still be satisfied with his purchase.
That’s not so amazing.
I’ve bid on items before and put in a “maximum,” but as the auction has played out, re-evaluated that I was willing to pay a little more when/if I was outbid. In such cases, sometimes I win…sometimes I don’t.
I don’t hit eBay terribly much anymore. But, my own favorite “tactic” (if you will) is to set my maximum at a buck and some odd change above a “typical” maximum. (For instance, if my “maximum” on an item is, say, $25, I’ll set my maximum to $26.63.) Since most people bid in even dollar incriments, it helps a bit.
Know exactly how you feel. For Fiddler’s Green, the Sandman convention for the benefit of the CBLDF, I came up with the idea for two back-to-back panels. Panel 1, Neil Gaiman, Caitlin Kiernan, and Karen Berger write a two-page Sandman story. Panel 2, Jill Thompson, Charles Vess, and Todd Klein draw and letter the story.
Now, Neil didn’t think this was a great idea; “No one will come, it’ll be boring, etc.”. Packed rooms for both items, people coming up after to tell me it’s the highlight of the con, etc. Neil: “I still don’t think people really liked it that much…”.
That evening, the original script and art pages go up for auction. I really wanted them, since they existed due to my idea and pushing for it. I even got up at the podium, where Neil was doing the auctioning, and mentioned something nice I’d done for the whole con, and how this was my idea and I really wanted them in hopes of getting some sympathy.
Hah.
I drop out at $5,000.
At $9,000, I lean over to Neil and say “Think this was a good idea yet?”. To his credit, he then said into the mike; “When this was first proposed, I didn’t think it was a good idea. Now I think it was a *wonderful* idea!”.
Went for $10,000. To an acquaintance of mine.
Hey, I just found the completed auction on eBay too and realized it was for two prop dolls made for the episode–the Londo figure used by the actors in a few scenes and a G’Kar figure that just sat in the background. That’s pretty cool swag.
And spending $3500 per doll for two dolls sounds so much better somehow than spending $7000 for one. Not to rub salt into the wound, PAD…
Actually, I usually bid on an item on Ebay as soon as I see it. I set a max price and wait to see if I win.
In this case, I waited toward the end specifically *because* it was staying relatively low. My concern was that if I placed a bid early on, bidders might well recognize it was me (my on-line name isn’t exactly secret) and not want to go up against me. Don’t laugh; it’s happened before (“You’re my favorite writer and I didn’t want to get this instead of you.”) I wouldn’t have cared if it was some random dealer or even Warner Bros., but since it was Joe getting the money, I didn’t want to risk him getting shortchanged on the chance that B5 fans elected to keep clear of me.
When it was coming up on the ten minute mark, I figured, “Okay, I’ve given them plenty of time,” then put in a bid that was several thousand above what was already there. It was the price I was willing to pay for it. And then Spiffy2099 or whatever came in at about the four minute mark and chipped away and chipped away and my bid kept holding up until s/he finally managed to climb over it. At which point I was faced with the age old question of how much one is willing to pay vs. how much one is unwilling to pay but will anyway. So I tried to jump back in, collided with a sixty-second sniper bidding the same thing I was, and got frozen out.
At least I don’t have to worry about it happening again. That was the only prop I ever wanted from B5, so I won’t be going after anything else.
On the plus side, I got a plush Duck Dodgers out of one of those crane toy machines today with one try, so the last 24 hours aren’t a complete loss.
PAD
“MOLLARI!!!!…I’m going to get YOU!!!..a drink!”
Not that I’m stalking peter or anything, but I was curious. Peter has 100% positive feedback on ebay. Way to go! His recent purchases indicate he either wants more adventure in his life, or another disney vacation. Either way not quite the insightful look into peters mind that I was hoping for.
JAC
Yeah, usually the main thing I check on Ebay for is stuff from the Adventurers Club from Disney’s Pleasure Island. There’s several poor devils I’ve beaten out so regularly for assorted items that they must kind of moan whenever my name shows up. Gotten some really nice AC jackets and shirts, which usually go to Kath or Ariel since they don’t fit me. Fortunately I have all the assorted pins and the Colonel watch, so whenever those come up, everyone else at Ebay has a clear field.
PAD
I was sniped today on 2 wizard of oz mego figures for my site by mommyoftwins, so I feel your pain.
JAC
“I was sniped today on 2 wizard of oz mego figures for my site by mommyoftwins, so I feel your pain.”
Yeah, well, on the other hand, she had to carry twins to term, so you can take comfort in that she felt a whole lot of pain you’ll never have to deal with…
PAD
First, I’d like to note to Pookie that I raised the “sniping” issue, and not Peter. I read his post and made a judgement without knowing enough of the information to actually *make* an accurate conclusion. I was the one who suggested it might be a “snipe” job… my fault, not Peter’s.
John says:
“How could Ebay address the ‘sniping’ issue? Forbid people from bidding in the last 5 seconds?”
If an auction is within, say, 1 minute of closing, and a last minute bid is cast, they could easily tweak the code so that it adds another minute (or 5, or whatever) to the auction, to give others the chance to respond.
Craig J. Ries says:
“I dunno. Bidding for the first time with 11 minutes to go has at least got to somewhat resembling sniping.”
Nah, that’s just being lazy. I would see no sense in bidding on an item that has more than an hour left to close, unless there were no other bids yet, and one was needed to prevent the item from being sold for a certain asking price.
I suppose I would have less of a problem with “sniping” if there were a way for the auction site to block out the ‘bots designed to do so within a fraction of a second. Not everybody is so technically inclined or driven by avarice to find such software, and I tend to be a fan of a level playing field. I’m bright enough to locate and utilize such a program, but I’d choose not to do so because I *do* consider it a chickens**t thing to do to someone — especially the person posting the auction! So, I could never see an instance where I would fully condone the practice.
Wildcat
My commeserations, sir.
I recently got sniped on a set of Buckaroo Banzai storyboards from the film’s production office at the last minute. Wouldn’t have stung so bad except its my all time favorite movie and it happened on my birthday. 🙁
I have watched an auction for days, and bid in the last few minutes to win. Most of the time it doesn’t work, because the professional bidders usually beat me out. However, I seem to win more often by a last few minute bid, instead of a several-day bidding war.
I think what really annoys just about everyone is the bidders with 2500+ won auctions always winning. I can count my wins on one hand because of the pros.