Yesterday I mentioned a lot about me bidding for postcards on eBay. I won my first 3 bids, simply by waiting last possible moment to bid. I appear to be bidding against the same person at the moment, last week and this week, and I won all my bids, bar the one that this person had bid against me (by bidding at very last moment and showing no interest at all before then on the item), bar the one where this same bidder had bid at the very last moment.
4th and 5th bid, I did bid on them but I had decided to let this person win those, and this person won won those two.
6th bid I really wanted. So I am waiting to near the end of the bidding. But life got in the way. My friend Whats Apped me and needed to talk (text) urgently about her dog with end of life cancer. She was in bits. So it was either abandon the bid on these postcards, or show my hand far too soon. I went for the latter option. So I placed a high bid. Then immediately doubled that as a reserve it could go up to. Then doubled it again. This was far far far too much money if I won. But it took less than a minute to do, then I concentrated on my friend.
A couple of hours later, I looked in eBay to see who had won the bid. Guess what, the other same person who is bidding against me on everything at the moment had won the bid. He had doubled my silly high price on this item. I have no idea of the last minute dynamics on this (that is half the fun in this bidding war), but this person probably thought I was still bidding live at the last few minutes on this one.
But when I checked the postcard seller, he had added some new items on to his site which was buy only (no bidding needed). And they were a ridiculously low price (the posting and packing costs 3 times the price of the postcards!). But I already had an agreement with the seller this week, that he would combine all my won bids and send them by carrier instead of Royal Mail, thus making the postage a bare fraction of what it could have been. I just have to wait an extra few days, that is all. So I contacted the seller again and asked if he could combine the postage of these new items with those I had already won/purchased this week. A reply came back immediately, yes he said. So I ordered. I now have a hundreds of new postcards of British scenery for a fraction of the price I would have paid for those 100 in that abortive bid yesterday.
An incredible win win situation for me. So, I didn't lose out yesterday!
So far in my bidding, I have spent far less than the full price postcards I was paying for pre coronavirus.
I intend doing Postcrossing for quite awhile yet,
Next week might be my last week to bid, and this guy is bidding against me today and next week. Then I stop, I only have so much space to store them. Also, these postcards for me, I have the possibility of selling them on eBay maybe when these appears to be a shortage of postcards here.
If not, then I can see this scenario on the reading of my will in the solicitor's office.
My children, "Where is our inheritance? Where is Mum's money?"
The solicitor. "To the eldest child, crates number 1 to 50 (in the garage) of postcards. To the middle child, the next set of 50 numbered crates of postcards. To the youngest child, the last set of 50 crates of postcards."
