ScketreWhisp wrote:Believe what you will 'B', I am just stating facts.

Except your are not.

ScketreWhisp wrote:I am not determining what the current value is, the buyers are.. if they bid more than me, then their bid determined the value, not mine, anyone could have stopped at $35.00 and I'd be stuck with multiple copies.. you give me way too much credit.

My point about the Dragons is that I will bid what I feel they are worth if I want to buy it and sell it for $10-$50 profit... even if it's only $10... I purchased 4-5 Dragon 1s over the last few months because like stocks.. I KNEW they would go up with the end of the printing of Dragon Mag around the corner... and with the Dragon 1s, it paid off... I paid $157.00 for one, $267.00 for another so yes, I got some good money on a few Dragon 1s... yet I still sit on 3 .... so have I made anything yet ???.

Anyone with more than 2 brain cells and who has been on Ebay more than 3 months knows how it works and how this statement is utter garbage.   Again, regardless of the value you are making sure that have to outbid you to get it or buy the item from you which is 100% MARKET MANIPULATION, PERIOD.

ScketreWhisp wrote:Moving as fast as molasses... damn, I need to increase the prices then, they are moving too fast... I have a store with items and more on the way for whatever unknown reason... (I just paid $1000.00 for a lot of stuff I don't even know what or if it's really worth) I was never in the eBay D&D store market until someone I know started talkin' smack to begin with... I really do not care if or when my items sell... it's good when they do and no big deal when they don't, I don't do this for a living, it's a hobby.

You stated this before and it doesn't make it any more true this time.  You aren't just in this for the hobby of it, you might not be doing it for a living, but you sure as hell aren't in it just for the fun of it.  If you were in it just for the fun of it you wouldn't be running a store with seriously over inflated prices and bidding up the same items that you have listed in your store protecting your investment. You keep saying you don't care if they sell, but you also keep bidding things up and listing more things in your store.  So say what you want, but your actions speak far louder than your words.

ScketreWhisp wrote:As to the donations, unless FoulFoot wants to stick his 2 cents in and confirm, not much I can do there since PayPal transactions and emails of same can easily be doctored when posted in a forum. I will only say I have made 10 donations to the site, amounts vary based on the last set of sales.. which reminds me I need to make one for the PotVQ sale I made that was not via eBay, so it will be 11 donations momentarily. My point was you like to compare me to others that aren't even close.. some of that apples to oranges thing you mentioned...

Again since you didn't read my post the first time, let me restate for you in bold: YOUR "SUPPOSED" DONATIONS TO THE ACAEUM, WHETHER FACTUAL OR NOT HAS NOT ONE SINGLE THING TO DO WITH YOUR MARKET MANIPULATION, PERIOD. YOU AREN'T GETTING A PASS BECAUSE OF IT, EVEN IF IT IS TRUE.  FOUL DOESN'T NEED TO CONFIRM IT, IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH ANYTHING.  AS A MATTER OF FACT, YOUR CONTINUED MARKET MANIPUATION IN THE NAME OF THE SITE, ACTUALLY REFLECTS EXTREMELY POORLY ON THE SITE'S STATUS AS SUPPOSEDLY BEING IMPARTIAL.

ScketreWhisp wrote:And the sale to CSH and Smarmy1, I took the items off the eBay store, used the Acaeum prices only and then made sure they were okay with the items and totals before we agreed... and they were less than in the store, didn't say I did or didn't make money on the items... and I wasn't the one worried about "selling it for a small profit".. those were your words... anyone should want to make the most profit they can... hello.. it's capitalism... a free market...

Except you tried to pass it off to them and others as that you were doing them a "favor".  However in actuality, at least 5 of the items that you sold to them as a "favor" were purchased either right before or likely even after you had agreed upon the prices to sell them to them(and yes I know exactly where you got the H modules and the Shrinked SA set).  A real "favor" would have pointed them in the right direction and let them have at it for themselves without you profiting for needlessly being the middle man.  The again it just goes to prove that really aren't it just as a hobby.  

ScketreWhisp wrote:I don't think those prices were way out of line, and if they were, I would leave that up to them to tell me they were too high. And since I have owned the OCE Shrink and all the supplements for over 15+ years and the Silver Aniv I bought new, you have no clue if I made a nickel on those items (cept the Shrink Silver Aniv since I paid retail when I bought it)

Again, regardless of what they paid you for the aforementioned items, they would have paid considerably less if you wouldn't have done them both such a kind favor to the tune of $100+ and just pointed them in the right direction where they could have gotten said items without your "help".  In case you haven't figured it out yet, this is a community and a lot of things happen behind the secenes.  It can get pretty ugly when a good item is out in the open, but behind the secenes people do each other real favors all the time, i.e pointing people in the direction of an item they have been hunting for.

ScketreWhisp wrote:You seem to get your feathers all up about stuff... will anyone raise cane if you ever decide to sell that $7.00 Chainmail for more than $10.00 ??? heck $14.00 would be a 100% profit and a low end price of $28.00 would be 400% profit... I am not sure we could live with that.

(disclaimer: I saw the $7.00 purchase when it happened as a BIN, I THINK it was a Chainmail, heck it could have been an OCE for all I remember... I just know it was cents on the dollar for the actual value of the item)

Yep, I bought that OCE for $10 plus shipping.  I turned around and  relisted it on Ebay again for $10 plus shipping on the open market and let the market determine what it was worth.  I did this, as opposed to of course opening an Ebay store, listing it for $175 +/- and then bidding every single OCE set that came up for auction after it to at least the tune of $150. I mean there is no difference in that right?

bclarkie you strike me as a nice guy but to be honest I don't care a great deal about this discussion (probably because I selling items isn't my job).

I just think it is too bad that you and the other guy can't get along -- I'm not an A crowd acaeum member like you or Killjoy or etc.  (more like a D crowd) but this place always seemed pretty amicable to me.

Anyway enough of my feeble contributions to this thread.  Hope you guys can work it out.

Tdewey10, I am glad that my manipulation of the market has allowed you to get $389+ for your Dragon 1, glad I could help you pay your taxes, I'll try and manipulate a bit longer since I see you have a large list of items to get rid of and I'd rather see you get the most you can for them, expect me to bid on many if not all of them... and yes, I think most will have to pay a premium for them as I'll bid close to what they should sell for not what someone thinks they are worth.

*****

I have been PM'd by a few to not respond to 'B's' posts in the future since he is always right....

So I guess I can live with that.. so I'll make this my last response to a 'B' post...

'B', you are the man, you know it all and I am glad we are able to exist in your presence. The knowledge you bestow upon us about eBay, D&D and the free market system are unparalleled and I hope to read more of your insights in the future...    <--- note the smiley face, it's suppose to be funny... before you go freakin out

Really though 'B', you have your opinion and I have mine, it's okay, we live in America and we are allowed to disagree. You do good when tracking the real creeps and bad guys on eBay and you see things some others don't see, and that is helpful to many on this sight, I am glad you are here, even if we don't see eye to eye.

My ONLY point about the "supposed" donation you continue to mention is, they are NOT "supposed"... not that donating gives me a "free pass" to "manipulate" the market... I only mean that I am very unlike Coug... should I actually have the power to manipulate, at least others have benefited besides myself... I use this site, thus I donate to it.

And if you'd bother with the dates, I bought the H1-4 before I ever new Smarmy was looking and CSH told me about it.. it was already in my hand when I found out he was looking... and the Silver Aniv Ed... I still have 2.. paid $99.00 for one and $169.00 for the other and sold my original for $150.00 not sure where I made money from either of the 2 I bought since I still have them... and again... I have a Store because of YOU... I never had intention of opening a store until you bashed me for not giving credit to Acaeum for using a description in an auction and called me a Shady Dealer... so congrats, you started my eBay store... would you like one free item from the store for your good deed ? Believe me, with eBay fees, store fees, PayPal fees, and Acaeum donations, I haven't made anything... I am actually in the hole from where I started...

EDIT: Ok, on the Silver Aniv Ed I stand corrected, I guess I paid $129.95 for one and $127.84 for the other and I still have both.. the $169.00 a different auction

ScketreWhisp wrote:

I have been PM'd by a few to not respond to 'B's' posts in the future since he is always right....

Several? Or just one?

ScketreWhisp wrote:So I guess I can live with that.. so I'll make this my last response to a 'B' post...

y ONLY point about the "supposed" donation you continue to mention is, they are NOT "supposed"... not that donating gives me a "free pass" to "manipulate" the market... I only mean that I am very unlike Coug... should I actually have the power to manipulate, at least others have benefited besides myself... I use this site, thus I donate to it.

I still have 2.. paid $99.00 for one and $169.00 for the other

And where does this one fit in?




** expired/removed eBay auction **




I will say you taking credit for tdewey's Dragon #1 going for $385 is quite humorous especially considering you through in an early bid of ~$350 and then listed two of your own for the same or more than that immediately afterward.  I also find interesting that you purposely avoided answering my questions about why everyone else regardless of who they has to either out bid you on every Dragon Magazine #1 to come or buy one from you.  Anyway like I said above, I don't have really anything more to add to this.

tdewey10 wrote:
I remembered the proper term too late -- D-lister not D-crowd.

I'm such a moron.

Nah - if you were a moron you'd me part of the 'M' crowd (but don't mention 'M' Bags )

Does anyone else find refreshing your ebay summary addicting?

Only when buying, and then, only in the last 20 minutes or so. Of course, I haven't bought much on eBay recently (a few BINs here and there), and I'm still contemplating dumping some stuff, but I figure someone here will snipe me on anything I want so I'm mostly just on the lookout for nothing. Just glad there are other places besides eBay.

Kind of glad i ran across this thread.  Until now I did not know that scketreWhisp was douglasrhea.  I have had problems with him running up the bidding on Items I was bidding on.  I understand the free market and all but this just seems like price fixing between sellers.  Not that i think those sellers ask him to do this, it is just kind of "understood".  If you ask me this is damn close to "price fixing".

I would hope tdewey10 would denounce scketrewhisp's intentions of running up the bids on his latest auctions.  Otherwise I think you are complicit in the price fixing.  Not wanting to piss anyone off, but if I was a seller and someone announced on these forums that they were going to run up the prices on my auctions, I would certainly denounce that action.

Martin

Prufrock wrote:
I would hope tdewey10 would denounce scketrewhisp's intentions of running up the bids on his latest auctions.  Otherwise I think you are complicit in the price fixing.  Not wanting to piss anyone off, but if I was a seller and someone announced on these forums that they were going to run up the prices on my auctions, I would certainly denounce that action.

Martin

I knew it was a bad idea to participate in this thread.  Prufrock I'm pretty sure the use of the term 'manipulation' in Doug's post was an attempt at sarcasm.   I'm going to lie down and recover from my hangover and the news that Al Gore just won the Nobel Peace Prize.

bclarkie wrote:

ScketreWhisp wrote:
 I'd prefer to see items go for what the market shows they will go for... yes I bid $63.00 on a Dungeon 1 ... but someone wanted it more than me and paid more... as they should have... Currently they are worth more... not $150+ in my book, but hey.. I won't argue if they go that high...


Since when do you get to the sole determiner of market value is and who put you to be the one in charge of making sure it stays that way????  You just proved my point from above about "protecting your investment".   Aside from that, until you adopted the "beat me or buy it" from hostile market attack in the last 6 months, Dungeon Magazine #1's were were regularly going for $30 to $35.  Only in the last 6 months have they been going for more than that. Must be purely coincidental....

Brian, my only defense here is what you yourself said...within the last six months prices on Dragon and Dungeon mags have risen dramatically. What, besides Doug's purchasing habits, has occured in that period?  The cancellation of the longest running gaming mags in the history of RPGS. Which IMO has had a far more direct influence on these prices than anything Doug is bidding.  Are back issues of Dragons harder to find?  No.  Should they be going up this much in price? Debatable.  In both cases the perception is that since the magazines have been cancelled, back issues are harder to find.



Like it or not, perceptions are reality in this case.  I can offer as evidence two very large ($200+) purchases of various Dragon and Dungeon mags within the last couple of months by collectors wishing to finish off parts of their magazine runs.  These are Dragon mags, mind you, that aren't anything special (post #50), just various numbers needed to fill holes. On top of that, I've had a huge amount of single issue Dragon magazine sales in that same period...again, except for a #23 and #30 all are unexceptional numbers just needed to fill holes.



As for the pre-#20 Dragon market (and, to a lesser extent, the pre #7 Dungeon market), what Doug bids is going to be immaterial...for many years, Dragon #1 was seriously undervalued (selling in the $150-$200 range) when it should have been going for more. That it's risen to the $250-$300+ range in the last few years isn't IMO a surprise.  Hell, the entire first year of Dragon is undervalued (again, IMO) and has been for years.  Sometimes, the market just catches up to the item.  Since Doug isn't bidding on other items (woodies, for example, or monos) why is the market for these shooting upwards?  MERP items?  DGUTS?  I could go on.



In the case of Dungeon, I think these have been SERIOUSLY undervalued forever.  Considering Dungeons 3 & 4 are probably the two hardest to find periodicals ever published by TSR in the last 20 years, I'm surprised they don't regularly sell for $50+.  1, 2, 5 should be right behind.  Don't be surprised if these prices start rising also in the months ahead as people begin to realize there will not be a CD rom collection (I really think a lot of people held off buying these over the years thinking someday there would be a collection like Dragon mag of these).  Prices for Dungeon #1 are going to be silly for awhile (people see the #1 issue and get crazy) but it's actually more common than any other issue published the first year (2-6), so it should level out once multiple copies start going up on Ebay.  



Anyway, I guess my point is one determined buyer can affect the market for a time, but soon the market either goes back to what it was, or stabilizes at what it should have been. Like Cougie and his H1  fixation no one buyer can keep up with the sheer volume of product.  Eventually the volume overwhelms the supposed manipultor and he either stops buying the product or loses money on sales (as we have seen Cougie do on H1s).  



I guess my point is I've seen attempts at price manipulation and they always backfire in the long run.  The market takes care of itself.  I remember Aneoth buying every white box available at one time, outbidding all opponents, until he had amassed 15+ of these babies.  The only effect was to cause MORE of these to appear on Ebay as owners wanted to take advantage of the sudden rise in price.  Now, Aneoth was purchasing the white boxes for research purposes, and he didn't resell them on ebay.  But the effect was the same, more demand and higher prices in the short run.



There is a solution and that is for anyone selling a Dragon #1 to forgo the effect Doug's buying habits have had on the market, bypass ebay, sell it here or on Dragonsfoot for a set price, and bar Doug from bidding.  Simple. Personally if I had the money right now I would be bidding against Doug on every single Dragon #1 and the price would REALLY be going up. It's a undervalued collectible (not as seriously undervalued as it was a year ago) and I think the top end hasn't been seen yet.  For anyone who thinks different I point to the woodie IO was selling in the classifieds that went somewhere north of five grand.....! Way more than I thought this item would ever reach.  Anyway, it's a helluva thing to be arguing about.  Let's let the free market take care of itself, everyone here is adults, and no one is forcing someone else to bid on a Dragon #1, overvalued or undervalued or not.



Mike B .