Auction psychology

[raulus]

Originally Posted by BioCRN

At this beginning of this year I sold a PSA 8 1975 Jose Cardenal for $150 and that wasn't even a top-3 sell price for that card in that time period. It was $100-$150 range in the year before, too.

A recent one sold for $61 (including shipping) and there's a $96 buy-it-now sitting around with no action on EBay right now.

I still have no idea why there was a run on the card. I bought 2 PSA 8's about 5 years earlier for $20 combined.

While that kind of movement is big in percentage terms, in absolute dollar terms it's perhaps a little less exciting. It could be that the movement and action has more to do with the number of pieces on the market at the time and the number and aggressiveness of buyers that happened to be in the market for it. Or it could just be that a handful of buyers didn't mind paying an extra $50 or so to pick it up now, rather than wait for the next one to roll around at a lower price. Because hey, what's another $50 among friends when it means you get your cardboard today?!

Or it could also be one of your famous "fake sale" patterns, where someone was trying to establish a market at $150 or so, and then unload their real card at that price. Although for an extra $50 or $100 to create a fake higher market price, it seems like a lot of work to me.