250 mW, 532 nm, Lambdapro, eBay.

[buffo]

Good point about the "herd mentality" on E-bay. But I have to admit that often I will wait to bid until the last minute in order to take advantage of this. I know that sniping is frowned upon, but on E-bay it's either snipe, or pay more. Of course this works against you if you're the seller...

It is a nice laser. Sigh. I'm sure someone will snap it up though. (That is, if Jimbo doesn't end up with it!)

Adam

[The_Doctor]

Hell no, sniping doesn't bother me, I'm an inveterate sniper, I like to go in the last ten seconds, sometimes within the last five.

The way I see it, sniping is a deliberate risk taken by someone who knows what they want. It's when people don't think for themselves, and don't bid at all simply because they think no-one else is, without any real thought for what the item is actually worth, to them, or when their lack of thought leads them to overvalue a lesser item, get burned, then devalue mine because they haven't the wit to tell the difference, these are the things that annoy me, I'm willing to waste a listing or two to get loud about that problem, if it helps to wake people up out there.. I'm done with that now though, this time I just want to sell and be done, I have most of the stuff I need for new work, and want to get the rest.

When I snipe, it's because I know I want to win, at best advantage, so with no prior hint that I'm even watching the auction in some cases, I'll set the maximum I will risk, refresh quickly to see if my maximum is already beaten within the last moments, and if not, I put mine in so I can guarantee that no response is possible within a human nervous system. <--(Insert proper devil smiley here, when ready.) That way if I'm beaten, it's by another person with the same attitude who values it more, in which case I'm honourably beaten. I can never fault a person who sets their own value on a thing, yet, paradoxically, if the thing is set at a lower price than its established market value (as is the case with this laser), I do get annoyed if no-one sees it as worth going for. I can understand several people not having the money, that's life, but when every one of hundereds of viewers seems to feel the same, that's daft. It only needs one.

I like to set a serious starting price, I guess that also puts people off, but I'd rather that than risk stupid loss. Many bidders don't always put the price up. I've seen a Yamaha FS1R go for &#163;260 or less at least twice in the last 3 months, because bidders appeared to be telling themselves it was worth a pittance. By letting bidders tell them their $$$ or &#163;&#163;&#163; item is worth 56 pence, or cents, and only a few bucks or so on day 7 out of 10, the seller is letting themselves be degraded. I sold two FS1R's starting at &#163;280. One fetched &#163;330 I think, the second reached &#163;360. Sometimes it pays to state the real value of a thing. Maybe no-one will see sense, but those who do will pay well.

I think in this case, my main problem (apart from that blighted IR filter fraud causing distrust) is that I don't seem to value the laser much myself. Can't be helped though, LambdaPro lasers can only interest an inveterate tweaker for so long, they make it so hard to modify them safely, so I took one or two good looks at this and decided to sell as is rather than risk screwing it up.

I bought a couple of Casix crystals recently. I want a degree of control that I doubt ANY ready-built DPSS I'll ever afford is going to give me, so I'll have a shot at making one. I'm not after raw power anymore, excellent beam quality is what I want. This LambdaPro is moderately good beam quality, and strong, but I like my smaller one (shown in a picture on the auction). That's only putting out 80 mW or so, 130 when in a VERY good mood, but the beam quality is awesome. It turned me off the idea of trying to buy stronger lasers, and to take the trouble to try to get the finest beams I can, even at more cost and less power.

But for someone who (as I did for some time) wants as much raw power as they can afford, there's not a lot wrong with going for this, especially if they're in the UK.

[JimBo]

I'm keeping my eye on it.
I also am the type to wait until the last minute and then put in the maximum I am willing to pay. That way I either get it or not, if I am outbid at least it will push the price up for the seller.
On the point of starting thing at a lower value, I have a dozen or so diamond rings that I have put on ebay a couple of times. It made no difference if I started them ridiculously low or nearer market value, I still got no bids

Jim

[The_Doctor]

I'm keeping my eye on it.
I also am the type to wait until the last minute and then put in the maximum I am willing to pay. That way I either get it or not, if I am outbid at least it will push the price up for the seller.

So true. I forgot about that angle. I've used it though, especially when it also helps me. If I see something looking really underrated, that I also have and like, and it's not expensive, I'll bid maybe a few minutes before the end. That way, if no-one values it, I win, and if they do, the seller wins AND I win because it prevents devaluation.

Not sure what to suggest re diamond rings, except if they really won't go well, can the diamonds be recut for use in lasers as transparent heatsinks for tiny crystals? I'm joking, but it might actually make them very valuable here, to someone. Apparently diamond is the ultimate heatsink, electrically insulating, transparent, and the best single-element chemical for heat conduction known.

[Banthai]

i think you have summed the whole thing up brilliantly ....

for me sniping basicaly prevents the crooked seller from getting his mate/second account to start a bidding war .... and before ive been using sniping software .... i found it obvious that a few sellers would
not play the game ....... there is one seller from the states that either ups the bid ( Via private auction ) or pulls his lasers at the last minute
Why doesnt he just set realistic reserve

i guess most know who it is .....

and i also always put my max bid in as the most im prepared to pay

Ive been using "Auction Sentry" for the last 3 years and have found it really good

What do you guys use ?


all the best .... Karl

[allthatwhichis]

Hi, my name is Aaron... and I'm an eBay sniper...

I see no reason to bid on something till the end, that just raises the price... I wonder if it really makes a difference between a 3 day or 7 day auction... Unless it's a REALLY good starting price and a REALLY hot item... like aijii and dave's 100mW blues they show here with the 9 day auction... Would there be THAT much of a price difference in the winning bid if it was only a 3 day auction? Everything I sell on eBay seems to ferment until the last day or so and I usually still don't get what I "want" for it...

[buffo]

This *IS* starting to sound like a "sniper's annonymous" meeting, isn't it?

"Hello, I'm - insert your name here - and I'm a sniper on E-bay..."
<group responds with "Hello -name-">

I admit that I've even started using sniping software like Karl was talking about. Except I signed up with AuctionSniper.com to do my dirty work. They set up their shop just a few miles down the road from the server farm that E-bay has in California. The theory being that if their servers are physically as close as possible to E-bay's servers, then you can sucessfully snipe with 1 second left and still get your bid in under the wire. I haven't personally set it that close, but I have done it with 4 seconds to go...

They're pretty cool - they give you 3 free snipes to start with before they start charging you a percentage. Plus if you loose on a snipe you don't get charged. I lost out on my first 4 or 5 auctions, so they gave me several extra freebies. Right now I think I've still got like 4 freebies left... I haven't paid a fee yet!

Sniping is pretty much a given these days, and if you aren't prepared for it you're going to loose out on a lot of auctions. That, or else you'll need to bid sky-high when you place your proxy bid in the first place. Most people don't bid their maximum when they bid, despite the fact that E-bay's proxy bidding system encourages that.

Me? I place my snipe so that it lands within the closing seconds of the auction. I also set the price high enough that if someone beats me by even $1, I'm OK with that. Which means that I set the snipe price a tad HIGHER than I really want to pay... If I still win, that's cool, but if I loose it's OK because it went for more than I really wanted to pay anyway. Why do I do this? Because in the past, after I'd already lost an auction to someone else for a pittance (say, a dollar or two), I realized that I would have paid an extra buck or two to win it had I known. So now I bid just beyond my comfort level, and that ensures that if I loose I won't feel remorse. (I've yet to feel buyers remorse about anything I've won on E-bay.)

Adam

[JimBo]

I know the thread is going OT but what the hell .
It doesnt really help with lasers as there are too few of them, but, I use Fat Fingers to snap up bargains. It is amazing how many people have typos in their title so miss out on bids. Fatfingers does the work of trying all the common typos for whatever you are searching for .

Jim

[The_Doctor]

Autosniping? Where's your sense of adventure? I just have a few browser instances, focus on the commit button, Ctrl + Tab to switch instantly and space to send, after refreshing the main one to watch. And a small prog called Atomic Time to sync the local clock when needed. (Useful for making standard listings look as if I scheduled them on the exact hour point, launch listing at a fraction under 2 seconds early).

That Fat Fingers idea is good though, I sometimes look for odd spellings and typos to get better chances, but I often forget because it's tedious. Could use a local program though, make strings based on term, and pre-format tham to (stringA,stringB,stringC,...) for easy insertion to standard eBay search field.

Banthai, if you were willing to pm me with the name of that seller, I could use the education... I might already have seen that but no specific seller comes to mind.

[The_Doctor]

Laser just sold. I got an early offer. I'd meant to wait, but my bank account is in dire shape, and also my Paypal account receiving limit is reset tonight, so it was ideal and urgent timing, so I took the offer. Was &#163;250 including UK postage, and I don't have to pay eBay final value fees, so I jumped at the chance. I won't say who bought it, except that he saw my posts here, and there might even be a clue to the buyer on the board somewhere. If he wants to announce, I'll leave that to him.

Thanks for all the interest shown on this, it really helped me in an awkward time.