Puppy,

Don't know if you remember -- long while back someone posted an extensive note about dutch auctions and how sniping on them was not a good strategy. The poster presented a convincing case that the appropriate approach to dutch auctions was to bid your MAX as EARLY as possible. I don't remember the poster's name or the topic title. Maybe somebody can find that post again.

<HERE> is the post, I think -- very interesting!

Not so difficult to find old posts.

Doesn’t appear that the forum provider provides a spell checker. Most everyone is tolerant and doesn’t correct others.

quote:

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the LOWEST sucessful bid sets the price

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Yep, that's right.

I see some holes in the logic of bidding high and early (I think). I'll still snipe, but review bids close to end of auction. A penny or quantity of +/- 1 in a Dutch can make a lot of difference. If you bid early you can't change your bid.

Hi binhongman,
I thought we were considering items for which we would bid, but would prefer to take the chance of paying less after the item fails to sell. I suppose I was saying that I am confident enough of my own judgement to prefer to take opportunities to buy as the only bidder.

Your comments about Chinese and Japanese paintings are interesting. I agree that a signature by a well known painter should normally be understood as "in the style of" rather than "by". My impression is that there are lots of good value (Japanese) paintings available, but I do not have the money or space to collect them. Also, paintings that are really good, rather than okay, will cost a lot of money. Unfortunately the okay paintings are often effectively anonymous, because they have implausible famous signatures. Also, you need to look much closer than most Ebay scans to judge the quality of the brushwork. I am not sure what you mean by the "terrible" Chinese paintings. Do you mean recent commercial work mainly in black ink for tourists, or the old "silk" paintings with bright colours?

Hello All again:

BTW I was successful in my bid for the reduced relisted item. If I had only had my wished for
option I would not have had to sit glued to the computer while the olympic medals were being won waiting for the auction to close and poised to insert a bid if someone decided they wanted the item in the last few 30 seconds.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=3742077397&ssPageName=STRK:MEWA:IT

I have a friend here at work (he did not understand it either) who might help
me understand what "I am confident enough of
my own judgement to prefer to take opportunities to buy...bidder" means. I often
have trouble with the English language especially if I perceive ambiguity. So I will
comment on this later perhaps.

My option request really covers pretty much exactly what
the example that I have given illustrates. Here is suguri who offers a painting at $150.00. I know that when (s)he lists things like this for this much money that they rarely sell and that (s)he will relist them later at a reduced price. I would like to have the automated opportunity to bid for this item. Otherwise I have to sit at the computer or just decide to chance it completely (depends on when the closing time of the auction is). I guess I could write my own software to do this because the timing is always a problem for somebody like AuctionSniper (I see). Maybe I could develop an auction api. If I do that I will let you all know and distribute it. I am a developer of software by trade.

Now on to Chinese and Japanese Paintings. It is kind to understand it as "in the style of" rather than "by" and I think that that is a good attitutude to have. I would say that virtually all the painting offered on E-bay (recent commercial) or old? silk paintings or some other designation, are just nastily bad.
The term "good value" is very appropriate here. I would say that there are many Japanese paintings sold on E-bay which are of good value while the Chinese paintings sold are almost never thus. I really have never bought Japanese paintings until I saw them on E-bay and I see them as good value for the money.

Here is one example of Chinese painting that is nasty....
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http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=38124&item=3740410747&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW
This is a nice Chinese antique water colour couplet, It is painted on rice paper, well painted the chinese excellent calligraphy couplet by LIU YONG (1719-1804). Please don't miss such a beautiful work of art. Bid with complete confidence! This work is very highly recommended.
***************

http://www.chinapage.com/calligraphy/liuyong/liuyong01.html

http://hkma.lcsd.gov.hk/hkma/coldb1.nsf/a9a40795c80e27de482563310029dfb2/eeca148dceb55a6d482563b00028abe9?OpenDocument

The above two are real. I can see that the copyist could only master one part of LIU YONG's calligraphy. The couplet shows that the characters are quite variable thin and flowing and sort warm and stocky. The fake has only stocky characters really a much simpler composition.

A fair LIU YONG calligraphy couplet would be $4000 dollars or more. This seller has 100% satisfaction. My problem with this piece is that LIU YONG is one of my favourite calligraphers whose subtle work is stunning. This probably recent fake (probably with artfically aged paper) the paper looks bad is worthless and nasty. Sothebys and Cristies will sell a fake LIU YONG which will probably at least have some age. Chinese painting is in general a sad state. Japanese painting does seem moderately healthy. I have been able to buy Japanese painting from my use of the internet and have them authenticated by the experts such that I have good confidence in one's ability to get real Japanese paintings. For chinese this is not true there are only very few dealers that are trustworthy (knowledgeable) in the world. And auctions and E-bay are pathetic. Too bad because good Chinese painting are amazing. Thanks for your patience all.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: binhongman,

Well, I do not know nearly enough about calligraphy to collect it, apart from safe, cheap examples like Japanese sake jars.

However, even I can tell that your nasty example looks like it could be the menu at a cheap Chinese restaurant, especially after comparison with your good examples.

Sorry about the bad grammar in my last post. In any case, we clearly deal with different buying environments. I mostly deal with sellers who only have a small minority of unsold items, and I compete with (or try to avoid) aggressive bidders, many of whom are snipers. It sounds like you have less competitive bidding and a much larger proportion of unsold items. I can see that your proposal could be useful in your circumstances.

By the way, I agree with you about how good Chinese painting can be. Once every two years or so I go to Tokyo. The National Gallery there always has at least one or two superb Chinese paintings on display. Closer to home, the Ashmolean museum in Oxford has a new gallery that usually displays fine examples of relatively recent Chinese painting.

Well... throw out everything I've ever said about dutch auctions. I now hate them!!

Check the new display of bid history in a dutch auction. You can't see what each person bid. All bids are the same and show only the current price!     Hope this is a bug, and not an 'enhancement'.

binhongman,

I have a feeling a lot of sellers, and buyers, are creatures of habit, which makes them fairly predictable. This might be more the case in higher priced or lowered volume (probably redundant) items. What�s �typical� for something at $250, may not be �typical� for something at $25. The price of something must have a fairly substantial impact on an auction�s �dynamics�. As an example, adding $25 to a $250 item is only a 10% increase, but adding $25 to a $25 item is a 100% increase.

It seems that nibblers stop nibbling as the auction draws closer to a close. You could possibly improve your odds of sniping a non-bided auction by giving your snipe to AS at some predetermined, guesstimated time before auction end (Say an hour? Others might have a better suggestion.). That could work favorably against proxy bidders, but won�t do much good against another sniper.

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It seems that nibblers stop nibbling as the auction draws closer to a close. You could possibly improve your odds of sniping a non-bided auction by giving your snipe to AS at some predetermined, guesstimated time before auction end (Say an hour? Others might have a better suggestion.). That could work favorably against proxy bidders, but won�t do much good against another sniper

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Not sure I quite understand the reasoning, Rick. Could you expain the advantage of doing this?