bclarkie wrote:

improvstone wrote:
Brian ... I am sure there a few people named Brian in the US Maybe even some of the play / collect D&D stuff.

No doubt.  I just don't like the coincidences that seem to be piling up on this auction, thats all.

bri reminds me of the mel gibson character in conspiracy theory

bet he has filing cabinets full of stuff he keeps cross-referencing

improvstone wrote:
2. The price has not reached a point where I believe the zero bidder is having any real effect on the final price.

Agree there. My name may in fact be a coincidence, the jonb comment is not however. That is a deliberate attempt to scare people from here away from bidding on it. That to me means that whoever asked that question either is a member of this forum or is at least more than a casual browser. Nothing like taking advantage of the fact that we are already a little bit leary of the Zero feedback newbie bidder who has been on EBay for 4 years and no feedback seemingly trying to jack up the bid and then to blatanly ask that inflamtory question to get people even more leery. I have my suspicions as to who did it, but I have asked him regardless. I also question the fact that it seems to me that the nebie with the $860.00 bid does not seem to have found the other Fazzle auction with a bid currently sitting at $560 to his satisfaction. Think about this, lumberjacques scan is absolutely horrible, it almost makes it look fake. Then look at the pictures of the other Fazzle that I am currently leading on. There are multiple picture, big and bright, much more attractive to particulary a newbie bidder who is not supposed to know the source of the current one is reliable. If you were really a newbie, compare both auctions without knowing the sellers and which one would you be most likely to bid on....

afoolandhis$ wrote:

bclarkie wrote: Think about this, lumberjacques scan is absolutely horrible, it almost makes it look fake. Then look at the pictures of the other Fazzle that I am currently leading on. There are multiple picture, big and bright, much more attractive to particulary a newbie bidder who is not supposed to know the source of the current one is reliable. If you were really a newbie, compare both auctions without knowing the sellers and which one would you be most likely to bid on....

I'm not sure I follow you here, Brian.

Are you saying it's being shilled, yet the question from "Jonb" was meant to scare us off?

Well, it is possibly being shilled, but yes that jonb comment was definitely meant to scare off potential bidders, particularly from here. Only someone with extensive knowledge of the most recent jonb incarnation would know to ask that question. That was done by someone with the knowledge that it would be picked up by the forum members here. My point is that whether or not that zero feedback bidder is legit or not, whoever asked the jonb situation knows that most of us are very leery of the zero feedback bidder. The very publicv attention that this zero feedback bidder has gotten here already got people on edge and that jonb question is without a doubt an attempt to further attempt to make the mebers here paranoid. The thing with shilling is, that shilling only works for a seller if the shill bid ends up not being the highest bid. So with that the shill has to be be careful not to take too large of a lead on the auction and to slowly jack the price up, because if he does get to far up, he might just end up winning the auction, which is the worst case scenario for a seller. The seller obviously doesn't want to sell this item to himself as there is no profit on that. I will be the first to admit, that I am obviously not 100% that the zero feedback bidder is a shill or not. I am however totally sure that the jonb question was meant with only one intention in mind and that was to put everyone here futher on edge. WIth that in mind with the auction is where it stands, the likelyhood of that bidder on top if he is in fact a fake bid increasing his bid is nil. Someone who knows that fols are leary of the shill bid can try take advantage of the reluctance of legit bidders to come in with a high enough snipe to take advantage of the other bidders not bidding, but still getting the item much cheaper than if everyone who is interested in bidding backs off. See the problem.

afoolandhis$ wrote:

bclarkie wrote: See the problem.

Okay, now I see what you mean. Still, I think Howard's reputation adds a lot of weight to this auction, don't you?

Well, he seems like an okay guy to me, but you never know. At this point, the auction is still in the reasonable range anyway so the threat of the zero feedback bidder at this point is really not that great and if it is a shill, that it should have a major affect on the outcome of the auction price, especially when the snipes roll in.

All of that being said though, it brings me no comfort that a zero feedback bidder whose user ID was created in 2001, claiming to hail from Philadelphia currently, yet EBay has him/her listed as being from California is currently the high bidder on the auction. Something just doesn't smell right...

afoolandhis$ wrote:I can think of a couple of possibilities that are very well known names. They may even know Howard, or at least have been there when he DM'd it. If so, that would at least partially explain their interest in this one as opposed to the Troll & Toad edition.

Could be, seems like a pretty long stretch, but like I said anything is possible. Being that the price is still currently reasonable(I can't believe that I just said $860.00 is reasonble for a small RPG booklet ), I still say go for it, if you are still planning on dropping a bid on there.

bclarkie wrote:I really wish Jeff would have waited awhile before putting that bid on the auction:

http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... 8735096593

Why?

bclarkie wrote:I really wish Jeff would have waited awhile before putting that bid on the auction:

http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... 8735096593

I think our Zero friend may have reached his limit .....  a $20 push ... give me a break.

Looks like bad news to me.  :?

He is registered since 01 and currently is bidding on a number of very cool items.