[R-390] Snip bidding

[paolo gramigna]

Hi all,
I just won an auction. I was a sniper.

The auction was for a Drake TR-4CWRit. It went along for about $500 for a
while, a very good deal indeed. Then all of a sudden a couple of bidders
began a war between themselves. "Bidder 10" offered $5 more, and "Bidder 11"
relaunched by another $5 and so long... It went up to $800, still (barely) a
decent deal. 
If i had made my offer at that time, most probably the two "mouse warriors"
will have started that bloody war again, so i placed a snip and went to bed.
I won for $840, and that was about my maximum (my snipe was for $855).

Sometimes, when there is a "mouse war" in progress between two "super-ego"
characters, sniping is a very good way to save my honest savings.

Another time, a widow posted a string of auctions, obviously with the help
of some non-ham relative. The auctions were very poorly presented; most of
the items had even wrong names on them (e.g.a Bird Wattmeter presented as "
watt measuring instrument " and the auctions were languishing at ridiculous
values. Out of pity for the poor Silent Key, probably rolling in his grave
at the moment, i kept bidding on all of them until some sort of interest was
raised up, and the poor lady got, at the end, a decent value (and i won a
third of the items by good measure). 

On my humble opinion, sniping is not so bad, after all. just snipe for the
highest value you would like to spend and go to bed, fat and happy. If you
are lucky, you will win for even a lower value and you will not fire up a
"mouse war" in the meantime.

Cheers,
Paolo IK4YNG