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An interesting auction just opened up for National Geographics:
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Melvin L. De Vilbiss on
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Bidding has begun.
Auction ends on 2 April - a bunch of really good stuff!
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Permalink Reply by Scott T. Shier on
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Thanks for the share Mel.
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Permalink Reply by Dale
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Hi Mel
I'm not staying awake for this as I'm in Australia. Can you let us know the results?
Thanks
Dale
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Good to hear from you Dale.
Some high-powered buyers for some of the truly rare stuff, i.e. a Very Good Vol IV, No.4 sold for $6,015.00, breaking my recorded high of $4,055.00.
However, there were a lot of good deals such as many of the early 1900's (all originals) selling for $5 or $10.
It was one of the finest run NG online auctions I've seen.
Kindest Regards,
Mel
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Permalink Reply by Daniel Eckert
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Pretty interesting, indeed. I got one item I especially wanted (albeit at a higher price than I'd hoped) -- and a number of others that happened to work out as $5 and $10 deals.
I wasn't as impressed with the user interface. The mechanism to indefinitely extend time when any bid was placed in the final 2 minutes made the more interesting listings a little difficult to keep up with. The timer function also appeared to "drift" off by as much as 30-60 seconds per listing if I didn't refresh the page for a bit. I ended up missing one item in particular that I hoped for as a result of a timer malfunction.
All in all, though, agreed -- a cool mix of items, including some great deals.
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Permalink Reply by Richard Kennedy
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I have put together some of the realized prices for this auction by Blue Box Auctions. I left out damaged issues, bound volumes (they didn't sell well), and supplements.
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Auction Results.pdf, 42 KB
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I agree Richard - the NG magazines generally sold for far less than what they are worth to collectors.
On the other hand, a few of the rarest sold for far more than I had recorded for eBay sales since Dec 2008, when I began my data collecting.
At first blush, I would say there were really only a handful of bidders trying to capture that illusive magazine, either missing in their collection or wanting to replace a poorer quality item. I watched the bidding war edge up bit by bit on a couple of items. You really need to understand your limits on an auction like this.
Two examples I participated in were the Dec issues of 1902 and 1904. I used my spreadsheet of the highest three sales I've kept since Dec 2008. My Dec 1902 data suggested I should quit bidding at $255. It sold for $270, which indicates there were at least two additional bidders since there were $5 increments.
For Dec 1904, I had a max bid of $210. The bidding kept jumping up by $5 or $10 increments until it stopped at $190 - my bid, $20 short of my max. I got one, whereas the 8 prior and 14 subsequent issues all went for $5, showing only one interested buyer for each item.
This is the general state of our collections - not really in high demand.
Never-the-less, I thought the mechanics of the auction was well run.
On a side note:
I recently purchased a new android. The "Collector's Corner App," is not available for this new software - but still available on my old Galaxy 20. Any thoughts?
Mel
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Hi Mel,
I totally agree with your statement "I would say there were really only a handful of bidders trying to capture that illusive magazine, either missing in their collection or wanting to replace a poorer quality item." The market for NGS collectors is really drying up. The younger generation does not appear to be interested in physical items, be they magazines, furniture, or other collectables.
I am not aware of the "Collector's Corner App." Please send me some information on it. I suspect that the applications's developer needs to make some updates to their code to make it compatible with the current version of Android.
-- Richard
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We are a dying breed Richard : - (
I fear it's worse too, than merely that the younger generations don't want physical items . . .
-- Scott
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Mel,
I adore and admire the longevity and detail and consistency in your tracking all this data : - )
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P>s> Mel,
I never knew there was an "old" app for this 'Corner . . . any time I have tried a search I found nothing, not even anything close in name.
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