eBay sniping..........sometimes when you play with fire.........

     Well..... you win some and you loose some , that's eBay .  This past week I had something happen that was pretty amazing . I lost an auction by 4 cents thats right $0.04 !!  I guess I always knew it could happen, I just never figured it would happen.   Some losses sting worse than others, Many times you really don't know if the person who beat you was wiling to go a lot higher or they just one by a whisker. But in this case when the max bid is less than a full bid increment you know exactly how close you came.  It's the knowing I think that bothers me.
     Now this was a nice little globe I was bidding on, not terribly high prices but a nice item to own here is a screen shot of the actual auction page.

(my high bid $106.97........almost..)

     The globe in question was a 4 inch Denoyer Geppert teaching globe. A very small tin globe with simplified geography, and a nifty movable meridian with which to easily manipulate the globe during class.  The idea being that each student would have one of these and follow along with the teacher on a larger model.  These being small, inexpensive and tin they did not survive in great numbers, and often times they were dented or scraped or rusted. These were produced starting in the 1920's and continued for more than a decade, this was also an early example 1928 or so.  This auction example was a bit dirty, but otherwise in very nice shape.  Congratulations to the lucky owner , you have a tiny treasure!
     So of course I was sniping, that is sending in a bid at the very last second, so that there is no time to react. The idea of course cuts both ways in that when you snipe you yourself have no time to react either. Now given this will I stop sniping.......?   Ah no!  it's still the only way I'll bid on an item.  It's still always best to bid strong BUT bid at the very last second so nobody can react, it takes the emotion out of it, and when you mix emotion with money the results are often troubled.  So sniping removes the emotional aspect of " auction fever" , always a good thing!