Tonight I managed to win on GunBroker what I hope to be an excellent condition Rossi 62 pump action .22 rifle. But the auction took 45 minutes longer than it should have because some guy kept putting in these last minute snipes for an extra $5. See the bid history below.

What do some people not get about the GB 15-minute rule? This isn't ebay where you can snipe something at the last moment. With GB, you put in the max you're willing to pay and you win or you don't.

Sorry, rant over. At least I won it.

Simple, they are seeing if you will go to sleep and get outbid before the auction closes.

By my evaluation "The other guy" put in 12 extra bids, so if he waited to the last second for each that might have extended the auction nearly 3 hours. And you still got the item for less than your maximum bid. Congratulations!

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Alan
SWCA LM 2023, SWHF 220

I have had this happen as well, extending an auction by an hour and a half, $5 at a time. I have heard that there is an app or auction program that people have that do this, betting the minimum, $5 at a time , at certain time periods under the last 15 minutes, to the set max that they want to spend. They are hoping to meet and beat your bid and catch you sleeping with the least amount possible. When this happens I am always thinking, come on man, if you want to beat me then bid $100 to try to find my maximum instead of nickel and diming me!

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Life NRA, Life TSRA, C&R FFL

I’ve seen certain items skyrocket near the end of an auction due to this rule. Hell, about 3 years ago I lost out on a gorgeous German Weatherby right there at the end. While frustrating to some buyers (like myself in that particular case), the 15-min rule is often a seller’s best friend.

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Some Might Say.

Hey Boss I've been the other guy. You see a firearm that you really want and the price is still at what you are willing to pay so you bump up the bid in hopes to win. And sometimes to my surprise I do win at a good price.
Then I have to tell my accountant (wife) I just bought a new gun.
BTW congrats on your new rife.

Imagine the audacity of allowing others to bid at an auction! And the crazy rules allow the highest bidder to make the purchase. I’ll bet the seller would like to change rules to where some mid range bid takes the item. Which part of this bidding process violated the rules ? I just wanna be fair cause I don’t enjoy whining now that my kids are raised .

Yeah, but do you sit there bumping $5 at a time trying to find the winning price? If so, you're doing it wrong.

There's no reason to do it in $5 increments because Gunbroker will do that for you. Say the high bid showing is $300. If that is truly the No.1 bidder's top dollar (i.e. he bid $300), it doesn't matter if the new guy coming along bids $305 or $1,000, it's still only going to bump to $305 (assuming a $5 increment). The software is only going to raise the next guy's bid high enough to take the lead.

If the No.1 $300 bidder actually submitted a bid of $350 (but only $300 shows because that's all it took to beat the No. 2 bidder) then the new guy coming along will go to $355 if he bids higher (even if he bids $1,000 it will only go high enough to beat the No. 2 bidder).

But if he tries finding the No. 1 guy's price by bidding $5 increments, he could be there all night for no reason. Say the No. 1 guy actually bid $400. No. 2 comes along, sees the $300 price so he bids $305. No joy, the price is now $310. So, No. 2 tries again at $315. No joy, price is now $320. This goes on until the No. 2 guy finally bids $405 beating the No. 1 guy's high bid.

If this is all going on during the final 15 minutes, then the clock is reset to 15 minutes every time the No. 2 guy tries to slip in . . . which gets to the OP's point. Trying to snipe on Gunbroker doesn't work.

So, yeah, you spot a good buy at the last minute so you put in a bid. Fine, but bid what you're willing to pay. There's no reason to try to inch it up since GB will only raise your bid high enough to beat the No. 2 bidder. Your "willing to pay" price will either JUST beat the other guy, or it won't. Either way it doesn't matter because A.) you got the gun for equal to or less than you're willing to pay or 2.) the other guy wanted it more than you did.

It is also the auction house's best friend as they get a percentage of the selling price.
I like to snipe and have found two ways to beat the 15 minute rule. (Both already described.) #1.- Just bid what you are willing to pay right off the bat and then forget about it. or #2- Don't participate in 15 minute rule auctions.

(To me they are even worse than reserve auctions because there is no "set" price that has to be met before you even have a chance to win.)

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Dean
SWCA #680 SWHF #446

The paranoid part of me always wonders if it's some sort of collusion to raise the price.

The definition of 'Auction' is -
A Collusion to Raise the Price.

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NRA LIFE MEMBER

The S&W products that interest me, pre-lock revolvers and adjustable rear sight semi-autos, do not appear in local retail stores. My choice is GunBroker to buy what I want.

Enter your MAX bid and walk away. You win -- Oh Happy Day, or you lose -- Tough there is always tomorrow.

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S&WHF 366

I had a hard to find Colt Auto on GB..with 10 minutes left it met reserve. I left the house for a couple hours, when I came back and checked on the results, it had gone up another $1100.

Also had a Mod 66 ND snub went up over $300 after scheduled end of auction.

No problem with the 15 minute rule here.

The problem I have with solution #1 (just bid what you are willing to pay and walk away) is I can't afford to have very many different bids active at the same time. (If I were to win them all, I would be in a world of hurt....).
So I am pretty much limited to bidding on one item at a time and this can get boring if I put in an early bid and then have to wait a week or so to see if I won. Other good things might be listed and I will be stuck waiting for the end of the auction I did bid on. My method is to bid what I'm willing to pay right before the 15 minute rule is invoked. This, hopefully, will catch any "nibblers" that have entertaining themselves by manually upping the bid a few dollars at a time. I will never bid again after it has gone into overtime. I've already given it my best shot.........

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Dean
SWCA #680 SWHF #446

Anyone ever attend a live auction? The bid goes on as long as more than one party is bidding. I don't throw my high bid at anything to begin with whether it's a live auction or internet. If I don't like the way the game is played, I keep my hands down or my fingers off the mouse!

When you look at bidding history the bids are not redacted. I’ve been dying to use that word .

Are you related to P O Ackley?
I’ve been dying to ask you that!

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NRA LIFE MEMBER

The idiots think its eBay. Irritates me as well. I do like the policy.

No but Ackley was my favorite dog rest his soul and he was named for p o

Any live auctioneer that waited 15 minutes for the next bid wouldn't keep his job very long.......

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Dean
SWCA #680 SWHF #446

It is entertaining though to watch two bidders duke it out for an hour $5 at a time. And yes the few times I’ve won on GB, I put in my initial bid at my top dollar and let it ride. But I usually wait till the auction is close to ending so someone doesn’t peck away at my top bid three days before the auction closes.

I went back over the original post and realized that the seller in that auction got $525 bucks for a Rossi 22 pump. Now who can say auctions don’t work ?

There are shill bidders working to boost some auction selling price. I always look at the "feedback" on bidders for auctions I am interested in. If there are shill bidders their "buyers feedbacks" will contain some from the auctioneer as they often get the high bid when others drop out.

Oh your gun broker account gives you feedback from the auctioneer?????? That’s some really high tech equipment you got there . I’ll bet the backup bidder on the $525 Rossi woke up next morning and promised to never drink again .

I get the 15 minute rule:

If I bid within the last 15 minutes it gives someone else the chance to come in and outbid me for 15 minutes.

Everytime someone bids within the 15 minutes it resets.

I like having the control to bid for myself and in the end the person making the highest bid gets the item no matter how long it takes.

If you chose to make your max bid and let it go they will tell you if/when you win so you don't have to check on it.

If you're truly entering your maximum bid anyway I really don't see why it matters. You enter your maximum bid and then you walk away and check the next day to see if you won or not.

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SWCA 3563
10mm aficionado

In an auction there are winning bidders, back up bidders, early bidders , and ground clutter. It’s important in an auction to know what you are !!!

There are several reasons why this might happen.
1. New guy unfamiliar with how things work.
2. Panic buyer: He wants the gun badly, but is on a very tight budget.
3. Cheapskate: wants the gun, but too cheap to pay what it takes to get it. Trying for the lowest possible price he can get.
4. Idiot/Jerk: there's no explaining these people.
5. Shill bidder: just running up the price.
Take your pick or any combination there of.
If you're gonna use the auction sites, this is just part of how the game is played. Get used to it.

About 15 years ago there was a gun on GB that I really, really wanted. But back then my budget was a major limiting factor in what I could buy. I knew what it was worth, what it would probably sell for and honestly, I had doubts about my chances. So I crunched the numbers and figured out what the absolute maximum I could possibly pay was and entered that amount a couple of days before the auction closed.
I was in the lead with money to spare right up until the last minute. Then this other guy started doing exactly what we are talking about here. Raising his bid $5 at a time over and over, extending the auction each time. After almost an hour of doing this, he finally gave up and I won!
Little did he know that if he had bid just one more time, he would have beat me by three bucks.

I've found this to be a possibility/probablilty on many auctions... Especially when the starting (or last) bid is unbelievably low for an item.

I no longer even frequent the auction sites.

It could also be that the bidder was trying to extend the auction as long as possible to give themselves more time to think about how badly they really wanted it.

Precisely my point of the thread. With the system used by GunBroker, there's no reason to try to nickel-and-dime the price up to see if you get a winning bid. Just set your max and you get it or you don't.

GB isn't eBay. I use Auction Sniper on eBay and it works great. But even there, I put in my max and I walk away.

You're missing the point. I don't care that someone else is bidding. It's an auction. But to put in little bids a few minutes apart to try to get a high bid with the system that GB uses is ludicrous. All it does is extend the ending time of the auction.

"The purpose for the 15 Minute Rule is to prevent sniping and offer all users the opportunity to bid. The 15 Minute Rule allows all bidders an equal opportunity to place their best bid, and the seller can be assured he/she will receive maximum value for the item."

Question:
If a item starts out at $100.00 and you put in a maximin bid of $300.00 after the second bidder bids $150.00, do the bid automatically go to your maximin bid of $300.00 or does the bid price go to $155.00 ?

Maybe the guy doesn't want to risk bumping the price up by $50 and only wants other bidders to see his small, deliberate increments.

The guy may very well be an idiot but there are reasons to do all of these things.

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SWCA 3563
10mm aficionado

Yeah, I did probably overpay.

I had spoken to the seller and they said the gun was practically new, with hardly any wear. That, and their high quality feedback on GB, is why I went as high as I did. I wanted the thing, and given that they're not made anymore and parts would be like hen's teeth, I wanted a good chance of getting one that would hold up.

Bid price would go to 155$

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SWCA 3563
10mm aficionado

It goes to the next increment based on the auction house rules. If you notice the sequence in the auction I was in, I put a max bid of $556 in on 3/25. As the other guy put in his $5 increases, GB would have told him that he had been outbid and bumped it to the next $5 increment within my max. The bid never got to my max because he finally gave up.

Before he started bidding, the high bid was $355. So his bid attempts added $170 to the price I paid. While I would rather not pay that extra $$$, it's an auction and I set my max, so it is what it is.

There are sniping programs being used that bid in last 3 seconds. The bidder was probably asleep. 5 dollar increments are set by gun broker . Place your high bid go to sleep ��. There is no conspiracy.

I had to deal with his close cousin. Years ago there was a pre-fall of France MAS 1936 in an estate auction. The auction had electronic bids in the days before the auction and was live streamed on the day.

When the item came up I was in the lead with a $170 bid IIRC. After some cajoling, somebody in the room bid $180 and the electronic system put me in at $190. I had a maximum of $210 I think.

For the next 3-5 minutes the auctioneer badgered the room and the Internet for more money. He clearly had a philosophical issue with selling a gun for under $200 bid. Eventually he got a couple of people in the room to bid and I think the gun went for $225. I was out and I didn't bid any more live because that auctioneer had knocked down everything else way quicker, and I felt the gun should have been mine already.

Now, the punch line.

I was also the lead electronic bidder on the next item at $300. It was a $550-600 gun most days. The auctioneer knocked it down to me in about 20 seconds. The blue haze around my den was pretty thick at this guy's inconsistency. Sure, I got a very original FN-49 dirt cheap, but still.

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Release the Kraken

Don't discount the human reaction in these bids. Have you ever bid on an item to see if the high bidder flinches and increases their bid prior to you beating their prior bid? There is a bit of sport in this.

I'm a firm believer in bid your max and walk away...and bid last minute...and constantly change my internal max bid limit last minute.

If you still won under your max bid who cares how long it took?

No issues with it for me. Putting in your max bid and walk awayfor a gun you really want sounds like it makes sense until you check the auction later and find out some other guy outbid you by $5 and won the gun. I bank on those guys who max bid and walk away.

It’s an auction. Nobody is breaking any rules by upping their bid by $5 in the last 15 minutes.

GB's 15 minute rule is a strange thing to deal with at times, but it does prevent programed sniping (à la eBay) and it certainly does help sellers get their best possible price... and isn't that what an auction is supposed to do?

I see both sides of the coin.

Not a huge fan of the way Gunbroker does their auctions, but I can live with it. I have lost a few guns over the years due to being beat by $5, but that is the game. I should have bid more in the first place.

You guys that are complaining that you were beat by $5 really don't have any idea what the winners actual max bid was. The $5 was just the automatic increment that bested your max. The winner could have had a max of almost any amount. I doubt very much that the $5 was a manual bid. (By using the "show all bids" function and the time stamps you can usually analyze if it was a manual bid or an automatic bid.)


The ones that drive me crazy are the "nibblers" that, during the early stages actually do make multiple manual bids trying to find your max.
I don't know if they are just playing games or actually think they are going to make a winning bid that will stand.

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Dean
SWCA #680 SWHF #446

Two things:

1. I never said anyone was breaking any rules. I just find it odd that someone would try to snipe a GB auction because the GB software is designed to prevent it.

2. You may not have gotten outbid by $5. In this case, my high bid was another $30 higher.

I got a nice Python once by waiting until the last possible minute to bid. The guy either thought he had it and walked away from the keyboard or for some other reason. It reset for 15 min but he never put in another bid.

Do you know the bidders true reason?

$5 bids are the best way to discover your high bid.

For a potential buy who doesn't know what his competition placed as their max, it allows him to inch up and outbid you by $5, not $20 or $50.

For an unethical seller with a shill account it allows him to find out what your high bid bid is as well, and push his profit margin up.

I don't use the site. Saves money and aggravation.

I don't see what the issue is. I do the same thing. My initial max bid is the best deal I would like to get it for, and if someone beats my deal from there, I bid in increments until I'm the winning bidder. What's there to complain about?

I would say that he was following the main suggestions given in this thread. He had reached his max and just walked away.


(All winners in a 15 minute auction are going to win by whatever the bid increment happens to be....)


added... I just realized that this isn't always true. If the losing bidder has maxed out and the winning bidder bids anything above (even 1 cent) but less than increment, the maxed out bid, he wins.

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Dean
SWCA #680 SWHF #446