Torg boxed set with original d20 on Ebay

[Mark]

Just a heads up to those who are looking to snag one of those lovely original limited dice! Complete boxed set with original dice on Ebay, with only a few hours remaining:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Vintage1990-West-End-TORG-Fantasy-Role-Playing-GAME-/280672982370?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item415969d562

(I'm not affiliated with this sale in any way - just sharing the love. I got my second Torg d20 a couple of weeks ago in a boxed set from Ebay UK :D )

[Mark]

So did any of us get it? Someone sniped it in the last 5 seconds, lol!

[skeloric]

Arrived too late to the party it seems.
Not that I had $10 to drop on this, unfortunately.
But I do sell on eBay from time to time and I personally detest trying to sell or buy by auction.
As a seller, it is frustrating to set up an auction only to wait days on end until anything happens -- mainly as almost all auctions seem only to get any actual bids in the last 30 seconds.
As a buyer, an auction can completely bollix up my day for several days in a row as I watch and wait for the whole thing to go stupid in the last 30 seconds, leaving me feeling totally helpless to actually get a chance at the product. (The whole "sniping it" bullshit that is annoyingly typical on eBay.)
I prefer to just place a price tag on it and let someone buy it whenever they feel the urge to do so.
Just as I prefer to search by price and pay the price listed if and when I can.

[Mark]

I sort of agree with you. As a seller, I found ebay to be terribly stressful. Mind you, my first sale was a $2000 bass guitar that the buyer refused to pay for and tried to make me lower the price after the auction ended. I got my money in the end but it was a really unpleasant experience. My gf has had better experiences selling clothes and shoes and stuff. I have a stack of gaming things I want to sell (dungeon tiles and Paizo map pack and the like that I'm just never really going to use) but am putting it off because I don't want to deal with jerks again. Not that the buyers will all be jerks (I try not to be one when I'm a buyer) but once bitten and all that...

As a buyer, though, I find it quite exciting, lol, and I have to confess to being a rather incorrigible sniper when I really want something. By the same token, I don't mind being outbid at the last second, as it's kind of part of the game for me. That said, the Torg box I got the other week with the original d20 couldn't be sniped as the auction ended while I was in the tourbus en route to Scotland, lol. So I just had to put in a normal bid and sweat it out. Won by a few cents at the end, which was nice.

Incidentally, if anyone in the UK is thinking of selling any Torg novels, please let me know! I have the original trilogy and Interview with Evil but am having trouble finding the others at reasonable prices over here. There's loads in the USA on Amazon for mere cents, but the shipping is crazy-expensive (like $3 for all the books and then $40 shipping, ack!) Yeah, I know they're probably not the best books in the world but you know how it is...

[Apieros]

The key to eBay is this (and I say this as a former 5-year employee, worked in Billing and Infringement/VERO):

Decide what is the absolute highest price you will be happy paying, and bid that the first time.

If someone outbids you, you weren't willing to pay that much and you haven't lost anything.

If you pay that exact amount: it was the amount you were willing to pay, and you weren't cheated.

If you pay less: you got a deal.

That's it. No worries about sniping. After all, if the sniper bids less than you, you still get the item and for equal to or less than what you wanted to pay.

If the sniper wins, he was willing to pay more than you for the item. Look for it some other time.

If you lose, and would have paid more: that's your fault. You should have bid that upfront, rather than trying to rush information onto a server, across the Internet, when timing is utterly critical.

Make a decision beforehand on acceptable price. Bid that. Win or lose, you get what you wanted.

[Mark]

This is excellent advice and is basically what happened last week when I bid on the Torg box with the original die. It's particularly helpful if (like me) you are an excitable fellow and find sniping enjoyable in and of itself, heh heh. It also helps prevent getting carried away and becoming embroiled in a last-minute bidding war because you simply have to have that copy of the AD&D First Quest LP, no matter how much it costs!

I don't even own a turntable :(