Fbg 6.5
Temp 36.1
I like my new hobby of bidding on eBay.
It is for postcards, for my Postcrossing. With not been able to travel the last few months I've not been able to go and find any postcards. You can buy new ones on Amazon in which case you might be paying eight or £10 for 40 to 50 postcards, which is very expensive especially with the postage abroad added on them.
On the bios recently, at least since Coronavirus, many postcrossers have asked for other postcrossers not to buy the ones from Amazon because everyone is getting them from there, and they are ending up with a lot of duplicates. so, this is obviously boring when you're receiving a lot of duplicates.
The past few weeks I have won every bid on the postcards on eBay. And as well as having completely different postcards many of my postcards have been no more than one penny each.
A lot of these postcards I am winning off eBay are from the 1950s onwards to about the year 2000.
Obviously I am going for the postcards that don't look dated (But vintage showing the old way of life in Britain are perfectly fine because postcrossers want those), and so postcards of landscapes, churches, cathedrals, castles, thatched cottages, and many coastal postcards (which don't show close up crowds of dated people) are absolutely perfect.
a lot of these postcards are from collections, I suppose house clearances, and the collections have ended up with the sellers of postcards.
Last week I ended up with a whole pile of absolutely spanking new postcards still in packs of 50 in sealed cellophane wrap from the printers or whoever. Over several bids I ended up with more than a thousand of those for less than one penny each. I also contacted the seller and did a deal with him, because I am buying from the same seller each time at the moment because he has given me very good deals, with postage. The postage and packing can come up to several times more than the actual bid for the postcards themselves. And so he saves all my bids for the week but I have one and instead of sending them by royal mail, he sends them by carrier. Okay I've got to wait maybe a week for them but that is neither here nor there.
I have never lost a bid yet, occasionally I bid again someone else but I have always won by waiting till last minute, and I'm putting a bid in in the last minute.
I won my bid on Wednesday. But yesterday Thursday I lost both my bids, and I am bidding against someone else. What!!!! I am now not winning!!!
I have to say I cannot understand why there are so many postcards so cheap and bulk buy. Then I got a message from a couple of my pen pals in the states who we do direct swaps with, And they are telling me they cannot get postcards for love or money in these coronavirus times. They tell me they were also bidding online for postcards and the supply has literally run out.
I already thought that this supply postcards appears to be bountiful on eBay but will not continue like this, and could run out anytime. I also realized that the postcard sellers are not selling any of their postcards in these Coronavirus times. And so holiday resorts, coastal towns, tourist centres have a glut of postcards they have been unable to sell.
Anyway me losing yesterday was a new experience for me! And I was pipped at the post very last second literally. It got down to 2 seconds 1 second and I am still the winning bid, then it got to 0 seconds, and the message came through saying you have lost somebody else has been higher than you. How close can you get to losing something!
Anyway, I laughed when I saw what the person had bid. This person had suddenly made a wild bid of more than three times my previous bid. What!?!
Anyway, I thought it was about time I read up on bidding on eBay. It turns out that waiting for the last few seconds, and showing no previous interest in the item, so the price doesn't creep up bit by bit with bidding against someone, is actually called 'bid sniping'. eBay says this is legal on their site (it never occurred to me it might not be legal). In addition, apparently there is some software you can put on your computer which will do this 'bid sniping' for you and it's configured to work with eBay servers, so that it has a direct connection in that last second to win the bid for someone who has this particular software.
Hmmm..
So then, I decided to check who was bidding against me. And I found out it's been the same person last week although I did it the last minute and I won. And Wednesday and Thursday I was bidding against the same person. I've only just found out you can find out not the actual id of the person but you know if you're bidding against the same person, because the beginning letter or number and the end letter and number, apart from the stars in the middle, tell you that it's probably the same person you're bidding against.
Then I find that the person I'm bidding against today for three items and tomorrow for five items is the same person. This person has already placed a bid the moment the item came out with the seller.
I have not shown any online interest on the items. And I will play the game of bidding in the last 60 seconds, and see how close I can get to 1second and still place and win a bid.
I also find that the exact items I want next week, and they're quite a few, the same person has already placed a bid and a reserve price that don't know exactly what the reserve price is yet. I know what my limit is on each item and my limit is nearest to the original bit price as possible.
This should prove very interesting.....
so I am busy busy now because I have to go and do some shopping, get back before bidding ends, and I will catch up with all your lovely posts later....
Exciting times... I will win against the guy even if this person has 'sniping bid' software...
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At least I'm not at risk of a hypo before I return for breakfast. Enjoy your Friday and the week-end to follow. 
