I really hate seeing these:

[Dan Schultz]

EGADS! There sure are some stupid prices on Ebay these days.

[Donn]

I wonder what the seller paid for them, or if he's just representing the original owner.

[Dan Schultz]

I wonder what the seller paid for them, or if he's just representing the original owner.

The seller is a well-known 'recycler' who canvases schools for surplus instruments. I've purchased many instruments from him. I know the local schools have sold stuff to him. He specializes in 'bulk buys' and the price often isn't much more than scrap.

The problem with most schools is that they don't have the ability to sell off surplus instruments on a onesy-twosy basis and everything has to go through the corporate school system.

A horn that doesn't play is basically 'scrap' in the eyes of the bean counters. There's often not a budget for repairs but they can buy new stuff periodically.

[Donn]

Looks like pretty good business - buy a truckload of instruments as scrap, and sell them for decent money. $3623 for a couple tubas, Linton bassoon, Selmer alto clarinet. If it's an infrequent event, and their music personnel are maxed out with their regular work load, there's no way that kind of money could fund an extra position to work on instrument sales. But someone with the right skills - well acquainted with band instruments, maybe some basic repair knowledge, and good at online auctions - might talk to them about performing this function on a contract basis, maybe for a cut of the take, and bring these B&S auctions for illustration.

The bassoon may have been a relatively good deal at $380, I don't know bassoons. It's maple. I go for polypropylene myself, but maple probably fetches a better price. Anyway, the bassoon types evidently have a better grip on themselves, or maybe "Linton" doesn't sell like "B&S."

Looking at the bidding history on the tubas, it looks like a combination of all three common types - a couple giving it a shot for a good deal, a couple shills or auction fools who started low and entered dozens of bids $10 or $20 apart up throughout the course of the auction, and a couple serious players who showed up late with bids twice what anyone else had been thinking. Looks to me like they both put in bids for both tubas; both wanted the 2nd tuba, but when AQ took that one, 2S went all in for the 1st tuba. But AQ also put in a low bid for the 1st tuba, after the 2nd tuba auction closed. Based on that and 2S's bidding history, they look like fixer-resellers to me.

[Dan Schultz]

Looks like pretty good business - buy a truckload of instruments as scrap, and sell them for decent money..... Looks to me like they both put in bids for both tubas; both wanted the 2nd tuba, but when AQ took that one, 2S went all in for the 1st tuba. But AQ also put in a low bid for the 1st tuba, after the 2nd tuba auction closed. Based on that and 2S's bidding history, they look like fixer-resellers to me.

Those early multiple bids can be easily explained. They are just an indication of a 'proxy' bid early in the auction. Initially, they only had a bid of $10. If someone entered a maximum (or proxy) bid of $400... the bid would have increased by whatever the minimum bid was as bidders 'took a shot' at the auction. Yes... I did bid on both of them but know enough about these auctions to know that there is often a heck of a lot more work to be done than just fixing a broken linkage. Without knowing something about the exact condition, those horns were only worth maybe $400 each to me.

[Donn]

Ah, I think we're talking about different things. For example, looking at the first tuba "#110" with the trashed bell flare. During the last hour, AC and TT take turns putting in about 20 bids between them, in $10 increments. They're pushing up D3's $600 bid from the day before, and when they get to $520 someone else takes over and pushes it to $575. Of course D3's actual bid goes up too, with each one of these, but I don't see that (because I didn't select "Show automatic bids"!)

I'm not saying it's shill bidding, AC anyway just seems to be someone who seems to want a busted tuba and maybe has no idea how proxy bidding works. He apparently bid 39 times on this one overall, and has been bidding on 6 different tubas, including the other B&S. TT I'm not so sure about, but I don't understand how the shill bid thing would work - how would TT know to let it go before he reached D3's maximum? So I suppose it's the same clueless bidding fever at work.

[Dan Schultz]

Ah, I think we're talking about different things. ....

Probably. I've never figured out the rhyme or reason for some of these auctions. I liked it in days gone by when you could actually see who you were bidding against.

'Shill' bidding is where the seller is either actually bidding on the item to run the price or is having someone else do his bidding. In the case of Ebay... this is rather risky. Number one... Ebay won't tolerate such activity and number two... if the seller wins the auction they have to pay the fee.

I think this particular seller is honest. I mentioned before that I have purchased things from him in the past. Sometimes he will actually call me before he lists an item because he has learned what I am interested in buying.

[Donn]

I liked it in days gone by when you could actually see who you were bidding against.

Oh yeah. Around here we had a yearly benefit musical instrument auction for years. The adrenalin could really flow when there was a big ticket item getting into serious money, and hands are going up in the air with their auction numbers. There are still auctions here, for restaurant equipment and such, but the musical instrument auction had a kind of special atmosphere for various reasons. One of those experiences I guess we aren't passing on to younger generations.

[Heavy_Metal]

Another one.....................

http://www.ebay.com/itm/SONORA-TUBA-/33 ... 4d34439d9c" target="_blank