So I just won my 1st real Mandarake bid war

Auctions on MSN and Mandarake
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BuraddoRun
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So I just won my 1st real Mandarake bid war

Post by BuraddoRun »

http://ekizo.mandarake.co.jp/auc_e/item ... 2850100001

It's a hanken douga for Zone Fighter, a tokusatsu show. I'm not sure what this was used for exactly, since it was a live-action show. Maybe a toy or something?

Anyway, previous to this I've only won scripts, and then usually because no one else bid on them, or only made the opening bid or close to it. But it seems like the stuff I've really wanted (that wasn't obviously super-popular) was only targeted by 1 other person. It's so frustrating, watching an auction get down to the end and then have that 1 person (it seems anyway) that keeps bid-battling you. It's one thing if it's a seriously popular item, but knowing you're dueling with just that 1 person that wants it badly, too...ARGGH! Oh well, I won this one at least. Sure I would have loved to get it at the starting 2500Y bid, but waddya do?

What do you guys do in bid wars? Do you just enter your top bid period, knowing full well that it's the top amount your willing to pay, or do you ponder and only bid up in increments in those last few (perpetually extending) minutes? I would have liked to get this auction at 3000Y or less. Then I said, "well, tops I'll go 5000Y." But when the other person bid past that, I said "a few more 100Y isn't THAT much of a difference anyway, I'll go 6000Y and THAT'S IT," and then of course I won at 5600Y. LOL!
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Re: So I just won my 1st real Mandarake bid war

Post by Rekka Alexiel »

Oh lord, depends on what mood I'm in... Sometimes it's an item that I would die to have...so I'll be in the bidding war until the end, upping my max bid as time goes by, sometimes it's an item that I really like but under normal circumstances would never pay such a high price for and yet I keep bidding...! Other times I don't care enough to keep in the war or to pay said crazy amount for something that isn't really worth it. So I guess for me, it depends on my current mood and value of the item. :p
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Re: So I just won my 1st real Mandarake bid war

Post by cutiebunny »

I'm one of those people that will usually get carried away when in a bid war. I know I have the potential to spend an absurb amount of money on something I want, but I will also regret spending that much on that item to the point that I'll be unable to really appreciate it. To avoid doing this, I have in mind a number that I want to spend on any given item, and in the case of Mandarake, I'll just go ahead and bid that number. If the auction goes over that amount, that's fine because, whatever I bid was the max I was willing to pay. And I still get to keep my money, which is always a plus.

Of course, there have been times when I've wanted an item at all cost and have gotten up earlier just to make sure that no one else tried to rob it from me. There was a particular shikishi I was set on earlier this year, and despite paying 3x the opening bid for it, I'm still quite pleased that I own it.

Congrats on your hanken win, BR :)
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Re: So I just won my 1st real Mandarake bid war

Post by Drac of the Sharp Smiles »

I've only gotten into a handful of bid wars over the years. Generally speaking, I'll start bidding on most things in increments, just to see if someone else is interested enough to outbid a low bid on the item I'm watching. However, if I see someone else seems to be upping-upping-upping me then I'll wait until the auction is about to close before putting in one last "this is my max" bid. Sometimes I literally have to turn the computer off and walk away to make myself do that, but I really think bid wars put people (me!) at a risk of overspending.

That said, of the few bid wars I've been in, I've won only two cels that way: my game cel of Emilio from Psychic Force (on YJ) and my harmony cel of all of Class Bananna from Akazukin ChaCha (on Mandarake). I regret neither win. ^_~ My most recent bid war loss was only about a month ago on Yahoo Japan, a gorgeous genga set of Dita from Chobits. I went a lot further for that one than I should have and it was one of the times I had to turn the computer off and walk away or I would have kept going. (I still wonder who I was bidding against. Maybe I'll find out sometime. ^_^)

The important thing to remember is that overspending in a bid war is something you should try to avoid. There will ALWAYS be another piece to interest you. I was sulking for quite a while after losing the Dita sketches.... but then several pieces from a show I like a LOT more have just come into my possession. Which, I might add, I have been able to buy partly because I DIDN'T spend the money on the other sketch.
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Re: So I just won my 1st real Mandarake bid war

Post by kamidake »

100% agrees with Drac.

For items I really really excited about, I'd stalk it and try to bid at the last minute and enter my max bid, sniping, if you will. But usually I just throw a bid in ahead of time and hope for the best. Because I have forgotten to bid on things before and don't really trust myself to remember to snipe. *laughs*

As for bid wars, haven't gotten into one recenterly, but thinking back, I've won several items via bid war, the most memorable was an Eagle cel from Rayearth off of Yahoo Japan. At the time, there was 1 other bidder who constantly would bid against me on Eagle cels, I've won some and lost some. But I remember this one was one I refused to let go. With Yahoo Japan's auto extend feature, that auction went about half an hour beyond the actual end time, and I spent WAY more than what I thought my max would be. But to this day I don't regret it. :)
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Re: So I just won my 1st real Mandarake bid war

Post by Kasi »

I usually bid upfront, then if I get outbid close to the end, I have a habit of changing my mind and putting more on. Thank goodness for the extended auction time which has saved me a few auctions that I decided last minute I really really didn't want to lose.
Drac of the Sharp Smiles wrote: The important thing to remember is that overspending in a bid war is something you should try to avoid. There will ALWAYS be another piece to interest you. I was sulking for quite a while after losing the Dita sketches.... but then several pieces from a show I like a LOT more have just come into my possession. Which, I might add, I have been able to buy partly because I DIDN'T spend the money on the other sketch.
I remember a piece a few years ago I wanted so badly and was gutted losing. Another good piece of the same character did come up that I won, it's nice too but for some reason I still feel gutted over the first auction! lol. I think it's the awful memory, I feel so materialistic haha.
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Re: So I just won my 1st real Mandarake bid war

Post by Jarmel »

I remember one bidding war where it boiled down to me and this other dude and he came literally 1,000 yen short of my absolute hardlimit. So good.
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Re: So I just won my 1st real Mandarake bid war

Post by sensei »

Well, here's an insight from someone who tends to walk away from bidwars (hell, how many cels is enough for a lifetime??).

I'll sometimes bid until I top the standing high bid and sit tight, hoping that this person lodged his or her max some time ago and is no longer watching the auction. Lots of time I'm right, and my high bid holds up.

But sometimes after a couple of minutes, the bidder answers with Judd Fry's "and two bits." That's when I start to consider, realistically, just how high I want to go.

Sometimes I want it, and I'll answer, and see if the other bidder blinks.

But sometimes I'll say, nah, if this is going to turn into something long-winded, the other guy can have it.

So I'd say on average your best bet is to answer the topping bid, but with a realistic sense of when you are going to quit. I remember once being in a really intense bidwar with an envelope of cash under the keyboard. At one point I got it out and counted it to be sure I had the next bid I placed. I did, and I won the auction.
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Re: So I just won my 1st real Mandarake bid war

Post by zerospace »

I have a tendency to end up wanting stuff on Mandarake that at least some other nut does, too. I've been involved in lengthy bidwars, but mostly of the sort that's more annoying than concerning to my wallet X|. I'm sure other long-time Mandarake users have seen this as well -- auctions being extended seemingly a bazillion times for tiny bid increments of ohh.. 100 yen. I must find every single bidder on Mandarake that does this, as I've bid on (and won many times) items that have been extended by an hour or more before they finally end. I think the longest one of these was nearly an hour and a half (I still have that item, too: http://www.zero-space.net/gallery2/disp ... itemid=108).

It's rare that I end up fighting for huge amounts of money or anything that goes far over my maximum bid. Many times I'm not even at my computer to watch the end of an auction, but most of the time, I am -- I usually enter my absolute maximum bid and then just watch. If the 100-yen-per-bid bidder gets too close to my max, I consider if I'm really willing to go higher, but I'd say 98% of the time, that doesn't happen. I tend to go all-in when it's something I really, really want (and that's about the only time I bid anymore). If it's something I'm only interested in winning for cheap, I place my max and most of the time, I don't even watch. :)
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Re: So I just won my 1st real Mandarake bid war

Post by BuraddoRun »

Well, this morning proved what many of you have said: "best to walk away if things get too high; there will always be something else you want later on." Sometime in December, I was bidding on some scripts for a show that I wanted. There were a number of them available, from varying episodes. The bids started at 600JPY, so I figured I'd bid on 2 or 3. Well, by the time the auctions were ending, every single one of them had minimum bids, so I chose one at random to bid up. The other guy had a higher max. I chose another to bid on. Same thing. I quickly realized that this one person had put high max bids on EVERY script. At that point, I would have been happy to get just one. I bid a max of 3000JPY on one and still didn't have the highest bid. By that point, I had gone beyond what I really wanted to pay, but if I would have won for that amount, then at least I'd have my one script. But, knowing that this guy had a high max bid on all of them, I bid up every single one to that 3000JPY, just to make him pay, literally, for monopolizing every single script available at that time for that show. If he had let me have just one script, he would have gotten the rest for much cheaper as I was his only competition and I would have stopped on my one script. But I guess that didn't matter if he was willing to put a max bid that high for each one. If I remember correctly, there were maybe 10 or so scripts total.

Anyway, about a week and a half ago more scripts came up for that same show (another 10 or so), with the same starting bids of 600JPY. Instead of waiting until today, I changed my strategy and placed minimum bids on 4 scripts. I figured that if some would-be-bidders saw some with early bids already, that they'd go for the ones without bids and maybe let mine be. And if that guy willing to pay a lot came around, maybe he'd be satisfied with what he had and let the ones with bids have them, especially considering the amount he payed last time. Anyway, by this morning, every script had bids on them, but only 1 of my 4 had been outbid. So, I decided to test the other scripts, and bid up 100JPY. They had bid a higher max. I pushed a little harder, getting them to 1000JPY. They were still winning. The one I had been on that was outbid I got up to 1500JPY, knowing it was a popular episode. Why did I do this? I wanted to make any would-be competition for my 3 currently winning scripts that were bidding on other scripts think twice since they were now paying almost double their original bids.

So what happened in the end? I got 3 scripts at the minimum bids, for a total of 1800JPY. That's 3 for almost half the price of 1 that the other guy paid for his a month ago. So yeah, I'm happy. Was what I did mean? I call it shrewd, and it got me my scripts at a great price!
"Come now, let us reason together," says the LORD. "Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool." -Isaiah 1:18
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