Ray Montee’s Rick Bakelites 4 sale on eBay this week

Jeff Spencer · Post by **Jeff Spencer** » 28 Aug 2018 1:50 am

Thanks for the discussion guys. A real wake up call for me. Appreciate everyone's insight. $:\$

Jon Zimmerman · Post by **Jon Zimmerman** » 30 Aug 2018 8:40 am

Must agree with Jeff, Doug, and all on this thread. Leaving a large collection behind after passing-on is an undeserved burden to inflict upon those loved ones left in a "wake" literally. They did not share your "obsession for possession", yet must manage that luggage left in closets. Not their fault at all.
My son and I have talked it over at times, and we both agree time is "of the essence". He plays 6 str/Spanish only, but shares my obsessed acquisitive regressive traits.. mostly for effect pedals. It's time to trim down to favorites only. After all, you can't take them with you to that (non-smoke) lounge in heaven, where all your best bud players in a dream backup group keep you smiling while playing your very best. Yeah, rite.
So keep it on the terra-firma.. make a plan, at least. A logical one.. even if some prizes are given,for free (?) to deserving 'next gens'.

Todd Clinesmith · Post by **Todd Clinesmith** » 31 Aug 2018 9:16 am

Who ever buys any of the bakelites on ebay, make sure the pawn shop knows to pack the insides of the cases with bubble wrap or like material, so there is no movement of the guitar in the case. Hate to see one or many of these show up with broken necks.

Bill McCloskey · Post by **Bill McCloskey** » 31 Aug 2018 9:23 am

All the auctions end in the next few hours so we will see where they shake out price wise. The 7 string is doing pretty well

Ian McLatchie · Post by **Ian McLatchie** » 31 Aug 2018 10:16 am

I didn't see the closing price of the other auctions but the 7-string sold for fifteen and change. From the seller's perspective that's an okay price for an instrument with some chrome wear and replaced tuners but it might have brought more with better photos and if not sold as part of a herd. I'm curious to see what the others went for. Well below market value, I expect.

Bill McCloskey · Post by **Bill McCloskey** » 31 Aug 2018 11:07 am

Most sold give or take $1000. Frypan for around $650. Pandas around 650-700, 7 string $1,500 and change

Loren Tilley · Post by **Loren Tilley** » 31 Aug 2018 12:22 pm

Having bought and sold a number of bakelites in the last 2 years looking for the one that was just right (which I found and love), these actually went for about what I would have expected.

Allen Hutchison · Post by **Allen Hutchison** » 31 Aug 2018 3:02 pm

I got a relisted notice on the 7 string starting at $600 OR it may be another one

Doug Beaumier · Post by **Doug Beaumier** » 31 Aug 2018 3:09 pm

The relisted 7-string on eBay has the same pictures as their previous 7-string auction. Could be a different 7-string though...

I caught this seller swapping pictures a couple of day ago. They listed a mint condition Model B on eBay with an opening bid of $500. The same guitar (exact same pictures) is currently listed on Reverb.com by a different seller with a price of $1850.00. I emailed the pawn shop and asked what was going on and they immediately deleted their eBay auction for the guitar. I suspect that they downloaded the pictures of the mint Model B off Reverb.com and used those pictures to sell one of their Ricks on eBay. When I emailed them about it they did not respond but they instantly removed that auction. Buyers beware...?

Loren Tilley · Post by **Loren Tilley** » 31 Aug 2018 11:39 pm

Could also be that the seller used another Ebay account that they control to outbid everybody else, either in an attempt to effectively have a reserve while maintaining the appearance of an auction, or they could’ve been trying to shill bid up the price and accidentally ended up winning. Just possibilities. All kinds of shenanigans go on at auctions.

Mark Helm · Post by **Mark Helm** » 1 Sep 2018 12:22 am

Doug Beaumier wrote:. Sally probably sold all those guitars to the pawn shop for a fraction of their value.

I spoke with her the day of the sale. She had to sell--she needed the $. I couldn't come up with enough to buy them all and I wasn't going to take advantage of her need. So that pawn shop did, apparently.

Doug Beaumier · Post by **Doug Beaumier** » 1 Sep 2018 4:56 am

Could also be that the seller used another Ebay account that they control to outbid everybody else

Yes, but the other listing was not on eBay. It was on Reverb.com. The same guitar, same pictures, and the seller on Reverb.com was in Illinois, not in California where the pawn shop is. I think the pawn shop downloaded the pictures off Reverb.com and used them for his eBay action. As soon as I asked them about it they deleted the auction.

Jim Cohen · Post by **Jim Cohen** » 1 Sep 2018 5:12 am

My greatest fear about dying is that my wife will sell my guitars for what I told her they cost...

Bill Groner · Post by **Bill Groner** » 1 Sep 2018 5:26 am

C. E. Jackson · Post by **C. E. Jackson** » 1 Sep 2018 6:00 am

Jim, my wife has always said that if I go first, she will sell my steels in a yard sale!
I live in a small town. Will probably be some great bargains. Hmmmmm.......

C. E. Jackson

Bill McCloskey · Post by **Bill McCloskey** » 1 Sep 2018 10:35 am

I asked the pawn shop why it was relisted, here was the answer "the winning bidder said he didn't mean to bid and canceled, so I just relisted. thanks"

Kind of strange. Wouldn't it just go to the highest bidder before the final bidder?

Doug Beaumier · Post by **Doug Beaumier** » 1 Sep 2018 10:52 am

Wouldn't it just go to the highest bidder before the final bidder?

That option might be available to the seller, but if the next highest bid is way below the final bid, the seller may decide to relist the item instead.

Jim Cohen · Post by **Jim Cohen** » 1 Sep 2018 10:54 am

Doug Beaumier wrote:
Wouldn't it just go to the highest bidder before the final bidder?
That option might be available to the seller, but if the next highest bid is way below the final bid, the seller may decide to relist the item instead.

...especially if that last buyer was a shill (maybe the seller himself) just trying to drive the price up and the next highest bidder didn't follow him up that high and the shill got stuck holding the bag. What to do? Cancel the sale and relist it. Tell people the highest bidder backed out. Hmmm...?

Loren Tilley · Post by **Loren Tilley** » 1 Sep 2018 10:56 am

They said same thing to me. When that happens, yes the seller has an option to offer to the next bidder I think (or at least that’s how I remember it when it happened to me). Of course if seller was also the high bidder and placed that bid just to stop it from going for too low a price, then seller would just relist it, hoping to get more the second time. I think I am unlikely to bid second time around.

Bill McCloskey · Post by **Bill McCloskey** » 1 Sep 2018 11:11 am

Interestingly, the "winner" who withdrew their bids, bid on 4 items the last month, ALL of which were with the seller. hmmm...
https://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll ... 3897116065

And all of the person's "bids" were placed less than an hour before the end of the auction

Jim Cohen · Post by **Jim Cohen** » 1 Sep 2018 11:14 am

Bill McCloskey wrote:Interestingly, the "winner" who withdrew their bids, bid on 4 items the last month, ALL of which were with the seller. hmmm...
https://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll ... 3897116065

And all of the person's "bids" were placed less than an hour before the end of the auction

Hmmm indeed... did he win any of the others and then were they relisted? If so, then an email to eBay is probably in order...

Bill McCloskey · Post by **Bill McCloskey** » 1 Sep 2018 11:30 am

Looks like they were just placed to drive up the price. The other steel I could find that the person bid on was stuck at $500 for 4 days. Then about 40 minutes before the end of the auction, suddenly bid, which seems to have jacked up the price to over $900 in less than 30 minutes.

Very suspicious.

Doug Beaumier · Post by **Doug Beaumier** » 1 Sep 2018 11:46 am

A lot of bidders wait until the last hour or even the last few minutes to bid. Some use sniper sites that submit the bid in the last few seconds of the auction. There is no sense in bidding early and often. That does you no good at all... just drives the price up unnecessarily. Amatuer bidders do that a lot. If you check the bidding history sometimes you'll see that certain bidders bid in small increments, 10 times in a row, early in the auction, trying to get over the other bidders. That's pointless and those bidders seldom win in the end.

Bill Sinclair · Post by **Bill Sinclair** » 1 Sep 2018 12:59 pm

Bill McCloskey wrote:Interestingly, the "winner" who withdrew their bids, bid on 4 items the last month, ALL of which were with the seller. hmmm...
https://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll ... 3897116065

And all of the person's "bids" were placed less than an hour before the end of the auction

While it shows many signs of being a shill bid, it's equally plausible that it was just an overly-enthusiastic and perhaps inexperienced bidder that couldn't follow through. The other bids that he had with this seller were all with the same series of guitars on the same day. Many of the people bidding on those guitars were bidding on multiple guitars just like him.

I ran into several flakey buyers like that when I was selling vintage car parts on ebay some years back. It's a real headache for the seller because you almost never get the bidding up to the previous levels when you have to relist it. While ebay gives the seller the option of offering a "second chance offer" to the 2nd highest bidder in that instance, I quit offering it because no one ever took me up on it and it just delayed being able to relist it. I'm sure that, like you guys, they just assumed it was a shill bid. Nope, just another flake on the internet. Fortunately, it only happened a handful of times out of a couple hundred items or so that I sold.

Andy Volk · Post by **Andy Volk** » 1 Sep 2018 1:59 pm

As Doug said, there's no point in bidding before the last 30 seconds of an auction. That's where the real bidding happens. It seems like the 7-string had bids up to a legitimate, fair price for that guitar so it certainly looks suspicious for a shill bid situation. I would have rather seen fair buy-it-now than all this lap steel mishegas. Yet, when you have a vintage Strat or Tele as the item, it can get much worse.

The Steel Guitar Forum

Ray Montee’s Rick Bakelites 4 sale on eBay this week

Food for thought