R68 on eBay

[schrader7032]

Here's part of a post that I ran across from Richard Sheckler that he wrote back in January this year. I'll have to bug him on the /2 list to see what he thinks now!

"Buy gold and leave the bike for someone who wants to bring it back to life and
ride it. Bikes are not as good investments as many of us would like to
believe. If we are luckey, we break even when we sell them."

[nedhoey]

P.S. There was a beautiful Riviera Blue never-ridden R60US (photo below) up for auction last January in Vegas. It did not sell because its owner set the reserve at $48,000. I thought that was too much. I called him and offered less, but he was not interested. But if he comes back next year or later, he may get his reserve. In fact, he may even deserve it.




Seems this bike presents an interesting dilemma in that at least 25k of its value is due to its unridden status. The moment it gets ridden, the value plummets, does it not?

While it is the very rare factory blue, it is just an R60 and a US version at that, two aspects generally not considered as desirable value adding factors. I would expect that a buyer would either have to treat it as an object de motorcycle to display or sacrifice its virgin status and a major portion of the value to ride it.

[jeff dean]

P.S. There was a beautiful Riviera Blue never-ridden R60US (photo below) up for auction last January in Vegas. It did not sell because its owner set the reserve at $48,000. I thought that was too much. I called him and offered less, but he was not interested. But if he comes back next year or later, he may get his reserve. In fact, he may even deserve it.




Seems this bike presents an interesting dilemma in that at least 25k of its value is due to its unridden status. The moment it gets ridden, the value plummets, does it not?

While it is the very rare factory blue, it is just an R60 and a US version at that, two aspects generally not considered as desirable value adding factors. I would expect that a buyer would either have to treat it as an object de motorcycle to display or sacrifice its virgin status and a major portion of the value to ride it.

While it is the very rare factory blue, it is just an R60 and a US version at that, two aspects generally not considered as desirable value adding factors. I would expect that a buyer would either have to treat it as an object de motorcycle to display or sacrifice its virgin status and a major portion of the value to ride it.

Good points. If it was mine it would go straight into my living room.

[Darryl.Richman]

Roland Slabon has put up his 1952 R68 ISDT Replica on eBay.

Within the first day of bidding it has reached $50k!

I hope you all have found and bought your R68 project bike, because they're going through the roof now. If it happens once, it's a lightening strike, but if it happens more than that, it's market value.

[miller6997]

I'm watching the Slabon auction and having a hard time understanding the bids. As I write this, there have been six bids, the last five all from the same bidder. There is no reserve listed, and the initial bidder has not entered a second bid, so it looks like the high bidder is bidding against himself. What am I missing?

Jon

[Darryl.Richman]

It can be difficult to understand the bidding; eBay certainly doesn't do much to make it clear. I believe what you are seeing is that the first bidder put in a bid for $49, 900.00. Because of the way eBay works, that would have shown a bid of $99.00 on the site. The second bidder placed several bids, trying to discover where the 1st bidder's top bid was, without committing a tremendous amount over that value. You'll notice it took him a couple hours to screw up the courage to bid $44,999. Then, he pretty quickly realized that the first bidder might have actually bid $45,000, and he would have just missed it! So he bid up again, but no luck. After another 20 minute pause, he finally went for $50k (or maybe more!)

However, I would say that the 2nd bidder doesn't understand how these auctions work. As was demonstrated on the previous R68, bidding early is a fool's game. The way to capture the auction is to "snipe" it in the last few seconds so that no other bidders have time to react.

The next mistake he's making is that he hasn't decided what he's really willing to pay for the bike. That's the way to bid yourself into trouble. Because, relatively speaking, each new bid is just a little bit more, almost not different from the last one. (Well, ok, the jump from $12k to $44k is kinda big...)

The way I think about it, you have to decide ahead of time what your top bid really is, above which you will be happy to see someone else take it. Then you can't get into trouble. And bide your time; bid in the closing moments for that full value. After all, if nobody else bids near your value, you're getting a great deal, because eBay will only bid on your behalf for as much of that total bid as is needed to win. OTOH, if you're outbid, then it was too expensive and you saved yourself from throwing away too much money.

[miller6997]

If the first bidder offered, say, $49,000 and it was registered as $99.00 (the minimum bid), then when bidder two offered, say, $2000, wouldn't bidder number one's offer be automatically raised to an amount just above $2000? And wouldn't that automatically revised bid show in the bidding record? In this case, after the opening bid, all the others are from the same person. Or am I just mis-remembering how it works?

I agree entirely about the second bidder's folly in chasing the price upward. I always decide on a top price at the beginning and set it as a snipe bid (esnipe) and never get into a bidding frenzy with other parties.

[schrader7032]

Weird...the bidding has been reset...back to $99 and one bid.

[Zeno Lee]

Sniping doesn't really work.

If you've been sniped, that means you just never placed the highest bid you were willing to place. I always approach eBay with the maximum amount I'm willing to pay. It's not what I will pay, since proxy bidding will auto-increment competing bids until my maximum.

Sniping is just manually performing what eBay is already doing via proxy bidding.

If someone is willing to pay more than me for the item, more power to him/her.

[Darryl.Richman]

Sniping doesn't really work.

If you've been sniped, that means you just never placed the highest bid you were willing to place. I always approach eBay with the maximum amount I'm willing to pay. It's not what I will pay, since proxy bidding will auto-increment competing bids until my maximum.

Sniping is just manually performing what eBay is already doing via proxy bidding.

If someone is willing to pay more than me for the item, more power to him/her.
I disagree, Zeno. While I wholeheartedly agree with your thoughts about the valuation of the item being auctioned, there are also the mechanics of the auction to consider. EBay auctions are not like regular live auctions. On eBay, there is a fixed moment when the auction is over, regardless of the bidders' willingness to continue. I believe that this deadline changes the way to approach the auction.

In a live auction, there is no reason to wait to bid; in fact, if you make a strong bid, you can create the idea in other bidders that they can't compete with you. A friend bought a 1930s Rudge at the Mid-America Las Vegas auction a few years ago. He and another bidder were standing at the end, and the bids were going up by $250 each. Suddenly, my friend upped the bid by $1000, and the other guy gave up, clearly demoralized that his competition wasn't just on the edge of quitting.

But on eBay, putting up a strong bid early encourages people who don't know what they are ultimately willing to pay for an item to continually try a little bit more. It's like the auction I described above, but in reverse. If I put up a $1,000 bid on an auction that starts at $1, then people have a week to think, "I wonder what the full bid is on this item; I could bid a little bit more on this and maybe I'll get it" -- and up the bid. My experience watching says that the "thrill of the chase" mentality takes over for some, and they will bid higher each time eBay tells them they've been outbid by my proxy. This raises the price I pay in the end.

The point of sniping is to keep other bidders from knowing that there's a serious bid out there, and not allow them time to chase that bid. If you're only going to bid once, why make it public knowledge what you think the item is worth? Why give them a week to decide that maybe they think it's worth more? Make the bid when the chasers won't have an opportunity to counter.

Now, when I face someone like-minded in an eBay auction, we both set our values and whoever values it the most wins, and by just a bit over what the other fellow thinks it is worth. That's a great bargain!