GunBroker 15-minute rule: What do some people not get about it?

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? :confused:
 
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.:D
 
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.
 
kbm6893 said:
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.
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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.
 
$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.
 
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Borderboss said:
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.
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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 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.
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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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Wow, I didn't realize Rossi 62's were going for this kind of money. I've got one I bought new to train my sons with about 20 years ago, seems I paid $125.00 NIB for it back then (I think I still have the box). It still doesn't have a scratch on it, I might have a little gem I didn't realize I had.
 
It's an auction. The 15 minute rule may be frustrating but is a fair way to allow for higher bid to come in over the internet. It think those bidders bumping it up a bid at a time don't quite get the idea of a max bid and are just stretching out the waiting game 15 minutes a pop. Maybe they should drop it to 5 minutes but 15 does let a late comer to jump in with a bid.
Now, in a live auction, any auctioneer that would harangue the crowd for 15 minutes for a higher bid would not be in business long.
But some people just don't get auctions. I'm reminded of the time I was at a gun sale and a bidder standing next to me got very upset when the auctioneer wouldn't knock down the sale at his $350 bid. He got pissed and left, grumbling about being cheated out of a sale. The final bid on the gun was over $500. Oh, the unfairness of it all!

John
 
I've been told by several live auctioneers that the name of the game is "throughput", not necessarily squeezing every last dime out of an item.



Let's say that in a given amount of time (example 10 minutes) an auctioneer can hammer down 10 $100 bids. That's $1000 to collect the premium on. In that same amount of time, with the same items, a good auctioneer might be able to winkle the bids up to $150 but will only sell 4 or 5 items. That's $600 to $750. Guess which way the auction house is going to go.....
 
I've won more GB auctions than I've lost. I generally don't bid on things that are showing a large amount of bidding activity. I know what kind of max bid I'm comfortable with on a given item but will never use that number as my starting bid. It's to my advantage to work up to that number and hope I can win the auction before I reach it.

For those that don't like the bidding process there are also many items listed with a "Buy Now" price. Click on it and the item is yours with no bidding. Regardless, by being careful, I've also won some cherished things for significantly under the "Buy Now" price. YMMV.
 
"Buy it Now" isn't an auction. It's more of a classified ad.


"Best Offer" is one I'm not quite sure what it is. Is it a 15 minute rule without any time limit? How long should one wait for an answer on their offer? It seems more like an auction without public bids and there is no obligation for the seller to sell. (Or is it just an attempt to get an appraisal without having to pay for it.)
 
THEmodelof1989 said:
Won and then complained. What kind of rant would you have gone on if you had lost? I guess some folks are just going to be unhappy no matter what.
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Jeez, re-read my posts. I'm not complaining about anything. I am just commenting on the silliness (IMHO) of trying to repeatedly bump a GB auction by a few bucks at the end of the auction hoping to win the bid. The GB software is specifically designed to not provide any advantage in doing this.

In my case, the guy spent about 45 minutes doing this without winning the auction. He finally got tired when he hit $520. So he could have just entered that amount the first time if that was as high as he was willing to go.
 
Faulkner said:
Wow, I didn't realize Rossi 62's were going for this kind of money. I've got one I bought new to train my sons with about 20 years ago, seems I paid $125.00 NIB for it back then (I think I still have the box). It still doesn't have a scratch on it, I might have a little gem I didn't realize I had.
Click to expand...

Well, this one did. :) I'm not sure if that's the general market. I just wanted this one, because it appears to be like new based on the comments I received from the seller, a reputable gun shop. And that's what I wanted, something that is unlikely to give me any issues. Knock on wood.

If you check GB for completed auctions, they certainly seem to go in the mid-$300 range depending on condition. There's definitely no shortage of buyers.

I was originally looking at a new Henry .22 pump, which would have cost me $100 less. But the reviews I see on YouTube aren't stellar. It seems that the founder at Henry even suggests people go with the lever instead of the pump. Not a glowing endorsement.
 
storyman said:
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!
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It has been a number of years since I bought off GB. Do live auctions where minimum bid is determined by price. For example a S&W revolver that starts at $300 the increment is $25. Last live auction i bought a very nice M67 for $375 bid + premium and taxes. Only made two bids. Live auctioneers keep it moving.
 
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