XM9 on ebay

[porterkids]

Two days ago an S-Tron XM9 showed up on ebay. I threw a bid in on it and today was notified that the bid was canceled and the item was no longer available for sale. I contacted the seller and asked what happened and he told me that he sold the bayonet. Turns out that he had no idea what it was and accepted an offer less than half of what the bayonet was worth and probably a third of what it would have brought it the auction ran to completion.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Vietnam-USN-Navy...item483825fd99

[rexmeyer]

Bill, don't you just hate that! It has happened to me more times than I can remember on ebay... Sometimes I think I should just contact the seller myself and make the offer, because I am tired of other people doing that to me on ebay... I missed a shallow fuller LanCay one time because of that..

[pwcosol]

A several years ago, within a day or so, there were two BUCK 1993 USMC solid-tang trials pieces to come up on Evilbay. I contacted the seller of the first one to be listed, within a couple hours of it being posted to auction, inquiring if there was a BIN price. Apparently there was, because shortly thereafter the listing disappeared. Someone else had contacted the seller before me, and bought the piece most reasonably. To my recollection that bayonet was mentioned on this Forum. I think it may have been resold some time later back on Ebay. Bill P. & I discussed these two M9s at the time. Bottom line is if you see something up for bid you really want, might as well take a shot, because someone else will be thinking the same thing. If the seller wants to take the quick buck, and not chance riding out the auction, (like the S-Tron Bill mentioned), it is their loss & some collector's gain!

[Carlo]

Fred, I couldn't had described better the situation on most auctions on ebay, and I fully understand your suggestion to ask the seller to sell the item directly.
But I also understand Rex point of view: if you were selling an item on ebay you are giving everyone* (*not considering some restrictions like USA only auctions) the same opportunity to buy a bayonet.
Whoever bids higher wins.
Whoever is quicker to use the but it now option (the real one, displayed on auction) wins.
Allowing direct offers is against all of this, in my opinion.

[porterkids]

I agree with you Carlo, but unfortunately many sellers do not. If someone makes them what they think is a high offer they react and sell the bayonet. So you end up in a position where you can hold to your principles and loose or play the game the same as everyone else and maybe win. I think in the future if I see something that I really want I will make an offer to the seller as soon as the item appears.

By the way, the S-Tron sold for $750.

[pwcosol]

The entire issue is a difficult call. Competition for desirable collectables can be intense. Yes, in a world of "fair play" the seller would follow Ebay protocol and see the auction thru. All interested buyers could bid and he whom is willing to pay the most becomes the victor. Unfortunately we do not live in such a world.
If there is a bargain or rare item up, likely some collector or profiteer will take a shot at trying to secure the item through a "back door" deal. Knowing this, don't be surprised when the piece disappears from the listings. Therefore, it is your choice whether or not to make an inquiry with the seller. The seller holds all the cards. More often than not, he will opt to continue the auction (if he is smart) sensing somebody must know something he does not about the item and it's potential value. Lastly, some sellers have taken to providing their direct email address within their item description(s), soliciting interested bidders to contact them directly if they have "a question". To me, this is a "green light" indicating the seller has other merchandise and/or is willing to sell items offline, and avoid the auction fees.

[Broad_Arrow]

I agree with pwcosol regarding the intense nature of collecting and the attempts to secure a rare piece.

In the case of this specific seller, it looks like he encourages "off-ebay" transactions to some degree. Looking through his "ask a question" section for his auctions there is a note under "buy it now" where he states: "Yes. Generally speaking, if an item does not yet have any bidders we can usually accomodate a Buy It Now request."

While I know that there were already a few bids on the item when he ended it, it is a small step for the seller to just cancel the bids and sell it off ebay. Maybe the person who bought it saw the note from the seller that he accepts buy it now offers and made the attempt, despite the auction already having bidders?

I couldn't even get a bid on his auction since he had a block on international bidders even though the auction stated worldwide shipping.

On a personal note: I have (unfortunately) recently resorted to contacting sellers of specific rare items about a buy-it-now potential after the last big auction I was bidding on ended early (rare Canadian M1899 Savage Arms bayonet). Luckily, another one from a different seller popped up a week later and I won it.

[Broad_Arrow]

Originally Posted by porterkids

By the way, the S-Tron sold for $750.

I am not sure what the item would have gotten at auction, although I do expect it to be more than $750.

When majson76 had listed on ebay a spectacular M9 collection many months ago, I was able to secure the Eickhorn XM9 for $730 but won the Ontario (rejected submission) XM9 for $1200. And I think the Phrobis XM9 sold to another buyer for $3400 (?)

Seems there is a disparity between value of the XM9-series. Wonder where the S-Tron would have fit on this price scale?

[porterkids]

I believe that the S-Tron, due to it's unique nature, would have run in the $2500-4000 range. I know that's a broad range, but you never know what's going to happen on ebay.

[pwcosol]

To Broad Arrow: Wow...TWO Savage bayonets within a week! Perhaps it was the first auction that drew out the second. It was great luck for you. Regarding what B.P. mentioned about the value of the S-Tron XM9, another factor is, to my recollection, they had one of the largest failure rates during the trials. I think they were failures of the blade in particular, which certainly would have reduced the number of survivors. Probably only the Marto XM9 (I wonder where the rest of those 55 went?) might be scarcer...