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The key to being a good sniper is to have a proper bidding plan.

Start by categorising the items you want to bid on:

Class D - Just having a pop because its a bargain.
Class C - Wouldn't mind that if the price is right
Class B - I really would like that, so I must remember to bid my absolute max
Class A - I cannot live without this absolutely mint set of 1788 Hen's Teeth in the original box with a signed statement by one of the founding fathers (in Biro of course!)

Most people don't care a damn about D and that's where AS is an absolute winner.
It sits there at $1 - you know if you bid $1.10 at the start, then somebody else will say "Hey, it must be OK because it has a bid on it, so they bid!" In this case a Snipe in the closing seconds always wins cheaply, as everybody else has bid $1.10 and you have it for $1.50. Great - happens time after time.

Class C items - no whinging complaints on the AS message boards about those - bid a reasonable price and shrug your shoulders if you lose - another will be along in a day or so.

All the trouble comes from Class B & A. This board is full of complainers who didn't bid enough.

Some words of advice from an old hand - if you see a 1929 Lincoln Model Dietrich Convertible Victoria sitting there on ebay motors with a start price of $350 because it was in the seller's Grandpa's barn and is covered in Chicken s!@*
Take it from me, bidding $1001.89 as your absolute max will not win it just because you think nobody else has noticed it!

Research what the normal price would be. So why do you want it - Mint? Rare? In its box? Now all this can make it very, very desirable. What will it fetch? Answer - whatever a collector just like you - wants to pay for it.

As an example, I collect an odd camera called a Montanus Rocca that nobody has ever heard of! $20 max - never given more in my life. Nice one appears last week in its box - must be worth 50% more - so I bid $32.89. Won it? Not on your life! Two other collectors have bid it up to nearly $80. Now whining on this board about AS bidding 10 seconds too early is not the answer - if you lose it like this, it's down to your faulty research.

What about Class A items?

Set a max you can afford - in the end it may be expensive, but if you really want it, you can always live with the price. That doesn't mean bidding $120,000 for that Lincoln if you can only afford $33,000. That should be your max. You can't weep then if only one other person sees this mythical Lincoln & bids $34,000, because you simply could not afford it!

What about the rare boxed hens teeth? Well my strategy here is always to keep an eye on the auction. Typically, its in Australia and I have to get up at 3.15am to oversee it. Why? Don't I trust AS? On the contrary, its me, I don't trust. Hen's teeth from 1788 are very rare - I don't think I have ever seen another set before and I have valued it too low - AS send me an outbid notice at 2.45am!

I have lost lots of things like that, so if I really need it (my wife would say I don't as I have 173 `near identical copies) I always keep an eye on the auction in the closing minutes and sometimes (if I am really losing my nerve) bid manually just as a backup to AS.

Happy bidding!

Enjoy using AS - you can recognise AS people, they always go around with a slight smirk of superiority. Phd grade bargain hunters!

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