Featured CAMEOS: Show & Tell or Ask & Answer

Thanks, Bronwen.

"Shipping within United States only" sadly otherwise I would have bid. I don't have a coral cameo and am itching to get my hands on one at a reasonable price.

Shipping within US only listings make me feel as if I am at a buffet and not allowed to eat, just look.

 

No size given, and not much info at all from seller. I'll write and see if I get a reply. Not sure whether I would bid but if it's teensy, and since it's an auction... I'm not sure.

 

It's not teensy. I can't explain how I can tell, but somehow can + I just know what's typical for coral. She's average size, maybe 1.25 in. tall & 1 in. wide.

 

Arlene, if you want it let me know, I will bid on it, and if I win I will send it on to you

They don't say anything about metal purity, but I see a mark on the clasp.

 

@Arlene_V

 

She's way nicer than this one in 10K for $499 + shipping:



In a less jazzy setting than this 14K Psyche, $600 + shipping:

 

And I read it as 14K. It's not museum quality, but appears to be flying under the radar as far as watchers go, so fair chance of getting it for opening bid or not too much more.

 

Yup, that is what it is. I just checked my mail. Seller wrote to me. I hate to bid against others here. Seller said that there are offers on the table and encouraged me to bid if I want it. Only a little over an hour left.

EDIT: I got over my qualms and bid on it. I do NOT use a snipe bidding program. In this case I won't mind if I'm outbid.

 

And @Arlene_V , if I do happen to win the auction I'll also offer you the option of having it. If you don't want to then I would keep it.

 

You're still only bidder. Fingers crossed.

And of the 7 watchers, I'm one with no intention to bid. If you also have it on your watch list, then only 5 others.

 

Thanks! Yes, it's on my watch list also. And maybe Marie Forjan's, too?

Since there is now a bid on it, some of those who put in offers may decide to bid also. Maybe sniping!

 

Sniping would probably be manual now. A preset automated one would have outbid you if it had a higher max. Hard to know. Anyone who made an offer less than opening bid was next to a thief. Sometimes they do decide to bid after all, but I'm going to guess they aren't generally interested enough to hang around & snipe. It only interests them because it's 14K. May just have been looking for meltdown.

 

Both of those thoughts occurred to me also. I don't think that a preset snipe bid would outbid me at the time I put in my bid. Those are set up to post the bid only right before the end of the auction. I know this because I've been outbid before by snipers when I was the only previous bidder and had bid quite a bit earlier than the end. My reaction to those bids used to be and now it's generally .

 

Guess it must be possible to instruct: if current winning bid 1 second before auction ends is less than max bid $X, then bid; otherwise, do not bid. Not sure they always had this degree of sophistication. Offended, not for the first or last time, a dealer who had become a friend by saying I thought sniping services were unfair. But I think of it as a game, sometimes a psychological game; for her it's a living, although she sets her prices so high, think she rarely makes a sale.

Auction watching time.

 

Yes!

 

I was outbid, manually. I bid again twice (against what I usually do, but this is an ongoing experiment). Don't want to bid very high so I'll probably lose out.

Later I added: Somebody else got it. Believe it was an automated sniper. Sorry, Arlene!

 

Awww. We don't know what winner was prepared to pay, guessing at least $100. If I'd been in would have bid $127.55 or something weird like that. Most people bid in round dollar amounts. After $100 the minimum increment is $2.50, so if someone had a snipe max of $125, I would have edged them out. That would have been my max on this one mainly because I already have others that are similar (including one I want to sell & now can't find!) Knowing my Internet connection is not the fastest, I usually load my max when there's about a minute to go, then confirm at about 4 seconds, but these days that's an eternity.

 

Winning bid was placed with 5 seconds to go. Think autobid would have waited until last second. As outlined above, winner did what I typically do.

 

Yes, I noticed there were a few seconds to go. So there are still more manual last-second bidders out there than I knew! If I had known what Arlene was willing to spend I would have bid more. Oh, well...

By the way, I just spent some time looking at the listings identified as coral cameos. As you have told us before, Bronwen, there are a lot of them that are misidentified!

 

If you're in the market for an overpriced conch shell cameo, 'coral cameo' is the search to run.