WITCO "Jazz Band" Carving

heads up

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2115031004

Thanks, man. This might be the very first e-bay item I will ever bid on! I have the original sketch for it, and I will have a section on how Bill Westenhaver used to hang out at the LIGHTHOUSE listening to West coast Jazz, so I want to use this for my book.

no problemo

You hear that everybody?!?!

BigBro is bidding on this thing, so give the man some room!

hehehehe

Welll...my first ever e-bay purchase was not to be. It looks like a clear case of sniping: After no activity for two days, the guy bid just one dollar more, 15 seconds before closing.
I heard that you can hire services now that do that for you. B.o.T, P. 186:"...rather unsportsmanlike"

bigbrotiki wrote:
After no activity for two days, the guy bid just one dollar more, 15 seconds before closing. I heard that you can hire services now that do that for you. B.o.T, P. 186:"...rather unsportsmanlike"

Bigbro,
Unsporting and frustrating as heck! Bidding in the last few seconds is acceptable if done manually. The "ESnipe" program is just unAmerican, or at least very contrary to the notions of fair play and decency.

Ebay is akin to a blind acution where one can "see" the bids. They should allow the auctions to continue until there are no bids for a period of minutes. But NOOOO.

Better luck next time.

midnite

Snipers really piss me off. There is really nothing one can do because they often use sniping services. Usually I just enter a low maximum in hopes of getting a bargain and I lose much more frequently than I win.

Ebay has considered stopping automatic sniping by extending the auction by a few seconds beyond the official end time but I don't think they've implemeted it yet.

The only consolation I can offer is that the winning bidder may have won by a dollar more but their maximum might have been much more than yours. If they bid $100 on an item and you bid $50 they get it for $51 (if the bid increment is $1).

Snipers really piss me off.

Harrumph!

And on that note, a timely coincidental article:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nf/20020628/bs_nf/18427

I've only come across a few Ebay horror stories, my complaints are usually sniping oriented. Oh, and the goofballs that charge usurous shipping fees.

midnite

Well waddaya know (got his e-mail after):

Hey Sven,
We've met before, I'm friends with bosko and truus. Actually I was in palm springs last weekend with them.
Anyway, I didn't know that you were "man-tiki" on ebay. Had I known it was you I wouldn't have Sniped. I also would have been delighted to let you photograph the carving. However, after the auction the seller told me that her husband had "accidently" already sold the piece.
So, no witco.
If I see this piece again, I'll let you know.

However, after the auction the seller told me that her husband had "accidently" already sold the piece.
So, no witco.

Uh, "accidently" sold it...uh huh. Reminds me of the emergency room stories I heard from ER docs. "I tell ya doctor, one in a million, I was vacumming in the nude...."

I don't believe that seller...nope. Translation is "we did not get a sufficient bid"...lousy.

midnite

Once I won an auction for a mint Danish Modern lamp at a bargain. The seller told me it was destroyed in his house fire. Yet he was still listing stuff on ebay. Not my priority after a house fire. How can you argue with that? I should have asked for a photo of the charred remains.

"Accidentally" sold it? How the #%%^! can that happen?

Let's see... one spouse puts up a rather valuable item on eBay, and just neglects to tell the other about it? Yeah RIGHT!!!

Seems to me like the buyer should have at least a little bit of recourse here... because the auction is a binding contract. Nothing could make the seller physically give up the item, but at least the buyer could report the dishonest activity to eBay.

Unfortunately you don't know me. I was the person with the Jazz Band Witco piece. I had no idea who made the piece or any of it's history so I did not have a price in my head. I have been collecting Tiki items for years, and have a tiki room at my home but I have never researched or looked up any of my items, I love them and never cared about the value, so that is why I had no idea about Witco ( I have now started to educate myself alittle more and have of course ordered Sven's book).
The week that the Jazz band piece was on was hell. I had offers everyday for the piece, weird no one wanted to bid, but I received 9 offers through emails. I refused to end the auction thinking that wouldn't be fair and everyone could just bid.
I had no idea about the piece or the worth, Sven did email me about another piece he saw in my PIC of the tiki room and was very helpful with sharing his knowledge on the artist which I truly appreciated !! I would never expect a bidder to tell me what a piece is worth or what it is, I know everyone is looking for a bargain, but I think it is REALLY SAD that I had 9 people (not Sven though) try to scam me by constantly emailing me offers (which is against ebay rules). I even had a man go as low as telling me that he had seen a piece just like that, he said it was from the 80's and sold for nothing and was worth nothing but he thought his son would like it and offered me 30 bucks. Now sorry but that is pretty low, now that I know what the piece was. Everyone who made an offer that week had a totally bull story about how the piece was for someone else or wasn't worth anything. I think that is really sad !!!!!!! I obviously had no idea who made the piece, so why try and screw me even more by offering low prices to get me to end the auction early.
The piece was sold in my shop, I have a vintage store that is over 2,000 square feet, my husband runs the store during the week and I man ebay from home, so every blue moon our wires do get crossed. We are really busy and our private lives are usually even more crazy !!! Usually I never have an item that is on ebay at my store, but this one was photographed at the store, so I had it in my back room. Not like I need to explain myself, but I think everyone can admit mistakes happen. I was told what the piece was after the auction by the Granddaughter of Westenhaver. I felt awful about what happened and even sent the high bidder a box full of items she collects just to say sorry for the mix up. So very long story short, Mistakes happen, and Bidders sometimes Suck too !!!! The women who bought the piece from my store has been back in and I have shared the knowledge with her, so she will know who the piece was made by.

Sounds reasonable. Does this mean Bigbro has a non-compete clause in his eBay auctions? Dang, how do I get one of those (probably on eBay somewhere, haha)?

I consider bidding in the last minute the only way to go. Plain and simple, if you bid on day one, someone will out bid you and the price just goes up.

Ebay is a sellers market. I want to try to get some advantage. Bidding at the deadline is about all you can do.

However, as a bidder, I would like to see a system on Ebay where if there is a bid in the last 2 minutes, the auction is extended for 5 minutes or 30 minutes. That would allow me to bid higher if I want, and Ebay would get more money too, and the market would speak.

But, these days I have learned and I bid my maximum in the last 30 seconds, and if I lose, that's okay.

This is another of those posts that whets one's appetite to see the item being discussed. Did anyone save a pic?