Thursday, January 31, 2008

 

Coffee Mug Snipers

A little less than a year ago I did a post about abusingusing Marshmallow Peeps in various ways, including floating them in hot chocolate. In my post I neglected to use a Krystal coffee mug. Frankly, at the time I did not have one. I do not drink coffee. Although I do use coffee mugs to cook eggs sometimes. (Ask me later!) Since that time I decided my Krystal Kitchen Kollection would be incomplete without a Krystal Coffee mug so I started prowling.
Recently, (2 months ago?) a Krystal Mug sold on Ebay for over $120. Here are the pictures from Ebay:



Obviously you're wondering why on Earth a Krystal mug would go for such an astronomical amount on Ebay. I can sum it up in one simple word:
Sniping
Since Ebay took over the world, a little known trick of the trade has also grown along with it called Auction Sniping. That link to Wikipedia has a few articles at the bottom where mathematicians (and physicists?) have some research on sniping and shown it is an effective way to win an auction.
The simple explanation of Sniping is when someone waits until literally the last couple of seconds before placing a bid. Since no one else will have time to react, if the sniper bids high enough they win the item without much of a fight.
Of course Ebay uses something called "Proxy Bidding" where you secretly enter your maximum bid and Ebay will automatically raise your bid in small increments if needed until you win or your maximum is outbid.
Neat idea that doesn't work.
The reason it doesn't work is because people DON'T enter their maximum bid. They enter what they think will win it. Thus they have to keep coming back and reraising their bid. Officially Ebay doesn't have a policy for or against Sniping. Yahoo does a neat trick where it will extend the time of an auction if there are any last minute bids. Neat idea, but that will eventually lead to an auction going for months, unless an "absolute end" is put in, which then just delays the sniping.
Sniping has been around for a long time. I got sniped a lot many years ago and thats when I started paying attention to it.
Back then you could buy a program for your computer that would automatically place bids for you. The downfall was it depending on your having an always on, fast internet connection. The new generation of sniping software is run on a server and you pay a "subscription fee" to the owner of the server and his computer will snipe for you.
Most literature you read basically says there's no way to prevent sniping and that is utter bull. Instead of telling people the exact second the auction will end you simply tell them what day it will end. Good luck sniping then!
Have I ever sniped? Sure I have. But I have done it legit. I sat and watched the auction and manually typed in my bid. Using automatic sniping tools is for wimps. So now that you understand what sniping is, lets get back to that mug, shall we?
This is the bidding war for the mug. They are listed in order of when bids were placed. These are actual bids someone (or something?) placed. The bids in bold are bids that were winning bids at the time. As you can see the listing sat idle for almost 2 days before alanjunior "Alan" entered a legitimate bid of $40. I know that seems high, but hold on it gets worse. Two days later rosesmindyblack "Mindy" bids a low $14, and Alan's bid is automatically raised (a "Proxy" raise). Mindy then bids $25, Alan's proxy raises again, so Mindy goes to $50, and finally she's winning. Forty-five minute later, Alan reraises to $60, and mindy is back to raise in 13 minutes. This is known as a bidding war.
Alan and Mindy go head to head until early one morning Mindy ups the bid to $85 (yes for a coffee mug) and then reraises her own bid to $120. Now THAT is insanity. Five hours later, Alan tries a few feeble attempts to regain the lead, but gives up at $105.01.
Two and a half hours later and u>three seconds before the auction ends, the snipers kick in. Boathook1 "Boat" bangs in three bids of exactly the same amount, $110.01. Multiple bids are done in case the timing of the auction isn't exactly right. It is essentially a "shotgun bid." At the same time, jjvega "JJ" shoots in a bid of $122.50 to win it 5 seconds before the auction ends, and doesn't leave "Boats" sniper enough time to adjust its bid high enough.
Sniping software is now almost required to beat sniping software. It's fairly sad what has happened to Ebay. Currently there is a mug up for bid. Here's the listing. Currently it sits at $12.50 with zero bids. The auction ends in the wee hours of Saturday morning. Can you hear the snipers in the woods watching it? This mug will easily break $20. I doubt it would hit $120, though. That mug was just due to someone placing an utterly unrealistic maximum bid and then the snipers were shooting way too high.
How do i know this mug will go for decent money? It's simple:

I now have three.
After doing some research you learn what to look for in a Krystal mug. They go left to right, oldest to newest. The one on the far left is late 30's or early 40's. The middle one is around the 50's and the one on the right is 1960's or 70's. First of all you'll notice the older ones have a black stripe around them, and another on the handle. That is a clear sign that it's pre-1960. Next look at where the word "Krystal" is placed. The oldest mug doesn't even say Krystal because that logo wasn't even put out until the mid 40's. The next mug it is way up at the top of the mug.
Then if you look at the actual store. The graphics are extremely clean and clear on the old mug. There's grass growing just on the edge of the sidewalk but not in the newer mugs. Most importantly, somewhere along the lines a second door was added to the storefront. You also can't see it in the picture, but in the oldest mug there's a small sign at the top of the window with the price of the burgers (five cents).
The auction I linked to above is for a mug most closly related to the mug in the middle (1957ish).
There are several other things to look for to tell the relative age of the mug. But I'm not telling you. You might snipe me.
I'm A Krystal Lover

# posted by JasonJ1052 @ 7:16 PM
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