Let the bidding frenzy begin......
 

There should be some mild interest here.

And let the debate begin.... on whether this should have been outed here!

Interesting it is a one day auction.

Interesting that the seller makes no mention of M101-6 or Felix Mendelsohn or Sporting News.
Seller has two feedback since Jan of '09.

I was wondering the same thing, he/she is selling another high value card.

Looks like he just sold a nice Cobb and a signed '54 Bowman Mantle.
Has a couple other cards listed.

I'm surprised this auction was outed also. Is it okay to publish any auction as long as it's not your own?

Checked his feedback, this seller has sold some nice stuff. Auction looks interesting, thanks for letting us know!

Price just doubled since this post started!

And that is why you do not "out" auctions.

This wasn't just a regular m101-6. If it says Babe Ruth in the title it WILL be found.

It is not ok to out anything you have a vested interest in, or doing it for a friend who has a vested interest... That would be against the rules. No, it is not against the rules to out other ongoing auctions, in general. It is a very debatable issue, and I would prefer they not be outed myself, but there can't be a rule against it for various reasons. We have had at least 3-5 good debates about outing ongoing auctions, and we can always have another, but I can't imagine that rule changing.

It's goin to the moon!

Really?
 

Can anything really be considered "outed" if it's on ebay? With all the ebay talk on this board I can't believe anything of any significance could get by the members here. If someone wants to bring an interesting item to the board's attention it should be certainly allowed and even applauded so everyone has a fair chance at it.
Just my opinion.
PS - It's better than all the name calling and sniping at each other.

Well put, Tony

This Ruth item was not going to fly under any radar.

well if it makes anyone feel better, I saw it and wasn't going to let it sell cheaply. Great card!

Love it Jeff

I was hoping to miss it, see that it sold for a low price, then have it be consigned to an auction house, watch it sell for a significantly higher price with me as the underbidder, then complain about that ridiculous selling price.

Sorry for outing Mt. Everest in Nepal :o.

wow. $5k in 5 hours....

I was high bidder at 7300 for about two minutes. Mendelsohn's are really hot right now.

I'm not sure who sent the seller the card type, but I'm assuming that person is on this board. That was really cool... I hope this seller is on the up and up. It blows me away that the seller wouldn't remember the card type. Could you imagine if it was consigned to REA.

That is a different ruth in the old Lipsett auction.

Strong price for a raw f-g card!

Yes it can be outed. High price items always sneak past on ebay. I won a auction last week for alot less money then the items were worth.

That item wasn't going to sneak past anyone.
And I agree with Pete, no the same card in the Lipset link.

Had I been seriously looking to buy this card I would have been pissed off that it was outed. It's impossible to know if the results would be very different... But if it were not mentioned here I never would have seen it. There definitely can be good deals found on eBay Especially when the items are vaguely marketed... Everyone knows this!

I agree. Very strong...

I agree, i would've been pissed if i was into it. It was a 24 hr auction with a terribly vague listing. I was not interested in bidding but not sure why we would out this one. I know a babe Ruth search would have turned it up but still.

Peter

I was not interested in bidding either but do not think that it should have been outed. Other than a newbie, no one who was an interested bidder would have mentioned it.

I know that on a couple of occasions recently, fellow board member(s) have outed an auction or two where I was an interested bidder and they ended up skyrocketing in price afterwards. For payback, I would consider doing the same on an item that I would pass on but think might interest them. Maybe something like that was the reasoning here........Hopefully, it was not helping a friend out.............

Do we really think that an ebay auction with Babe Ruth in the title is going to go unseen?

Jeff:

Since I have been searching for a Babe Ruth item on e-bay for the past few months, I can tell you that on an average day, there are 200 - 300 new listings that mention Babe Ruth in the title, on free listing days, I have seen near 1,000 listings. I'm not too sure that too many collectors would be willing to sift through all of those listings on a daily basis by performing a simple search for the name "Babe Ruth" and not more detailed search criteria.

If that's the case then "outing" it would be doing you a favor, right?
That is if you're not willing to do the work to sift through the listings.

I can see both sides of the issue, to me - no big deal as long as there is no "pimping" going on.

I am just glad the seller didn't end it early and sell it to someone who noticed it and send them a $500 offer to sell off of ebay. :)

I would have missed it, and I search for Mendelsohn, m101-6, 1917 and 1917-20 every day. I oftentimes check for m101-6s in postcards and photos too, although not by that search term. Obviously, none of that would have helped me here.

This was a 24 hour auction of poor description. While Ruth chasers might have immediately clued in, I believe it likely at least some of the bidding came as a result of this auction being outed. I certainly don't search for Ruth items on a daily basis, and there probably are loads of things to sift through if you do.
Bottom line and FWIW, count me among those who think this auction should not have been outed.

EDITED TO ADD: I see I'm late on some of these remarks but would add that although outing it allowed me a shot, I still think it should not have been outed.

I would agree in the thought that a substantial amount of bidding may have resulted from the post here.

Um, this thread is the first I have ever heard of "outing". Either I understand it completely wrong or I have no idea why it would be an issue to broadcast the sale of an item. Is the argument that if no one says anything that the eventual winner will get it for cheaper? If so, that is absurd.

Two issues at play here: a.) the issue of a seller/consignor slyly "outing" his listing anonymously in order to attain greater audience share and drive price, and b.) the feeling that if an ebayer through their own work has uncovered something listed either poorly, erroneously or incorrectly so that it may be able to be obtained at a significantly lower price then the "outing" negates this chance. It is "b" that is being discussed here.

Thanks. Then I do understand and it is completely absurd. For one to assume that none of the other millions of eBay users will see the same listing is just f***ing dillusional, particularly a big ticket item with "babe Ruth" in the title.

I have to agree that any auction with the words "Babe Ruth" in the title is not going to slip by undetected. I am sure there are lots of Ruth fans out there that search by his name on eBay. When I search using a player's name, I usually set a set a minimum price to weed out all the overproduced modern stuff.

I am not a Ruth collector, and $8Gs are way out of my price range. But that would make me feal uneasy to drop that much cash on a raw card off eBay.

Well guess you don't have alot of experience buying from ebay because sometimes big ticket items get past people. Not every person who goes on ebay finds all the same items. Some people may look in weird categories while others just stick to searching in basic baseball categories.

And it's a 24 hour listing, say someone who does a ebay search for Babe Ruth wasn't on ebay that day but came across this thread. Now they know about the item. So what do you have to say about the lot I won two weeks ago that sold for $700 because it was 1. Listed in wrong section 2. described wrong and the items are actually worth $3,000+. If it was listed in the right section or got outing in a forum it would have sold for alot more.

But say you only search ebay once per day, and when you did your daily search you didn't see this card because at the time it wasn't above your min price.

I agree w/brock! Many on this board have found bargain gems on ebay due to poor/vague listings...i have too.

seller's weird. he knows it's an expensive card. he knows of lipset, yet he puts up a vague title and 1-day auction. 2 too many red flags for me.

Fellow Collectors: DON'T OUT AUCTIONS!!! Period. If you have a question about an item that you are thinking of bidding on, try to word your question hypothetically. Or better yet, try messaging someone on this board privately. I think this ebay-outing example kinda sux! And no, I wasn't an interested party.

Quan,
It is/was a very curious scenario.

I agree with Brock, Peter and others against outing. This card had a good recipe for less traffic being one day. Strange how the seller sold an American Caramel Cobb last month with a 10 day listing. Anyone know the winner y***t (4337)?
Obviously members here already mentioned missing it?

Thinking about this further, I think the fact it was a 1 Day Auction made it far more likely to have a limited audience than the peculiarity of the listing. Good points being made.