Seriously Confused - PWCC Again
 

I sure many of us were deeply involved in PWCC's auction over the last 2 days. Well, I sure was. Bid on lots of prewar and had a hit ratio of about 10%and was surprised at the pricey levels of many midgrade cards. One card that I, and many others of course, coveted was the Ted Williams '39 Baseball RC PSA 8 o/c. The centering wasn't too bad and the rest of the card was gorgeous. One of my bidding strategies has been to establish the high bid and then bump it up for a cushion. With about 2 hrs to go, I decided to place one more bump even though I was still high bidder. I was denied access until the auction was over and assume it must have been felt by PWCC that I was a shill bidder. Those that know me will know that just isn't the case. While I was shut out, the auction continued and I lost the card to a final bid one higher than mine. I know in a post Mastro world all AH's must try to safeguard against shilling and I suppose I got caught in the net. I have bid in multiple PWCC successfully and high a strong regard for the way they operate. John Spencer

While I did not get blocked out, I did miss out on the Fan Craze Wagner PSA-7.

I made one bid early in the process, then decided on the maximum I would spend, then waited until shortly before the auction ended before entering it.

Well, two others had the same idea and outbid me. Missed it by $200.

I've been kind of snake bit lately - this wasn't the first 'big dawg' I had in my sights this week.

Experiences like this are what usually cause me to bite on BINs.

But, with the selection PWCC keeps getting out there, I'll keep trying.

It's obviously too late now but a call or email to Brent might have resolved the issue before the auction ended. You could still do that now if you want an answer. For what it's worth I think there are enough nicely centered 39 Williams out there in 5 or 6 that I wouldn't want to go too big for an O/C card.

I did win one card last night I was after. I put in a high bid early, bumped my own bid higher as you did, but then also used a snipe bid just to be sure. I REALLY wanted this card. I don't over do things like this but did on this occasion.

pwcc
 

I too was overbid on 3 cards that went kinda spendy (a Ruth and couple Matty's). I placed my bids early, was high bidder, then got swallowed up last minute. Oh, well, at least good to see true pre-war selling well. I did win a cheaper mid grade 1950 card with early bid that held - paid decent, but it had near perfect centering - pay a little extra for centering, but its worth it.

Sorry to hear this John. The part I don't understand is why your bids were ok except for the end? I would think either all your bidding or none of your bids would be acceptable. You still had an affect on the final outcome, makes no sense to me. And in my opinion, there is no "bidding strategy" in PWCC auctions.

It had to be a diffrent reason. If you look at the bidding patterns, there are a few people in his auctions that routinely drive up the auctions but seldom, if ever win.

Richard, I am confused as well. All I know that while I was already the high bidder with about 4 hrs to go, I decided to boost my max bid several times, as the bidding pattern shows. These bids were accepted without a problem. Then with about 2 hrs to go I decided to boost my max one last time but was denied access to the page with a message saying the item (Ted) had been withdrawn. I was repeatedly unable to access the page. Well, as history shows, the item (Ted) wasn't withdrawn; it was sold to a bid one increment higher than mine, including my bumps, at the time I was frozen out. The bidding pattern is clear on this. I feel I lost out on a card long coveted and PWCC owes me an explanation. John

So message them directly through eBay. They have an account here but rarely post and rarely read the board.

Excellent suggestion. Since I have opened this nasty little episode, I need to know what happened.

This is an ebay issue, not PWCC.

It could be either. Did the bid cross a threshold you've never bid higher than on an eBay or PWCC auction? I think there were some bidders a couple of months ago who were shut out because they weren't "cleared" to bid above $5,000 by either eBay or the seller, specifically.

It may be a little premature to make such a blanket statement. It could be a series or a combination of issues that were initiated by either eBay or by the eBay seller. It could be an eBay safe-guard. It could be the seller (or software) reacting to a bid or bidding activity as a perceived shill.

To suggest only one as the end-all without the facts is par for the course, it seems. Nothing personal, Jason, but too many are too quick to condemn or to defend without having the absolute specifics to make an informed decision.

My statement is based off of the 99.99% certainty that Brent Huigins doesn't have the ability to ban an IP address from physically viewing an auction.

I guess anything is possible though. Maybe he has some state-of-the-art bidding safe guards that prevent computers from loading eBay auctions. If he does, kudos, hopefully he will be able to stop the shill bidding.

Bingo! I think you have answered the question. The bumps above my high bid for the card at the time were under 5K so all was ok until I went for my final protection bid (maybe you can begin to tell how much I wanted this card), which was over 5K, and I suddenly was in no man's land, frozen out. The winning bidder, who clearly had a snipe bid, took the card (my Ted) as the bidding shows and that was it. I suspect it was Ebay that imposed a limit on me and not PWCC; it would have been nice to know I had such a bid ceiling which cost me this card.

Yeah I placed a bid on that SGC 7 T205 Cobb
but with two days left and got a warning not a refusal
from eBay. I haven't bid that high on a card for awhile
and eBay knows my recent history so I guess a flag went
up. I'm sure if it was at the end of the auction they would have
Froze me out. I'm sure there are some rules within EBay's policy pages.

interesting, i have only bid above $5k once and that was awhile ago. my max for any card is far below that now but maybe something to think about going into the next few items that may cross the $5k mark. Maybe shoot ebay a message a few days before the auction ends with the item numbers of the cards you are after.

so watched some PWCC last night for the first time, I gotta say some of their big 50's lots in nice condition with stars and HOF'ers went for quite reasonable prices. Didn't expect that.

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