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Originally Posted by Deschodt
Cars N bids (Doug DeMuro) is fairly new but only for modern classics (80s +)... Hemmings has auctions too...
I agree with you, I miss the old days of BaT and you will only find that on CL now if you are *very* patient. BaT is very polished nowadays and and probably will trend towards more $ making since they've been sold (and lower reserves, if they even keep reserves)... If you listen to various podcasts from the collector world, you'll know that lots of high end collectors like Jerry Seinfeld and many many more are on there and you will probably not outbid him or a Chinese billionaire that decided he needs a collection - hence my point that BaT's popularity worldwide today makes it very unlikely you will ever find a deal there anymore... Statistically there will be someone richer than you or stupider than you willing to pay more any given day. And it's also making it less likely local brand clubs owners will sell on their club sites instead of maximizing profits on BaT. Hell, *I* did it - I used BaT and made at least 20% more selling my car there than I would have ever thought of asking on a local club ad... It's ironic that sites like BaT helped make the hobby more popular and at the same time are shutting regular folks out of it... I have no answers for that, we're left with estate sales and dumb luck for decent deals...
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“Richer or stupider than you...” lol...ain’t it the truth. Sometimes both.
I got in a bidding war w a guy last year on a car on BaT that I really wanted, it was just an old Benz in amazing shape but not a super high value car. It was looking like it would slip under the radar and go cheap up until almost the end, so I threw in my “knockout” $8k bid, (it was at $5-6k, can’t remember). All of a sudden, I had a competitor and we bid against each other up to $15k before I dropped out. Auction fever...I was pissed and I wanted the car, if I couldn’t have it, I was going to make him pay dearly. No one else was bidding. I wanted to pay ~$8k tops but I went nuts. This is what drives the auction sites that are curated well...pure desire over reason and deep pockets in many cases.
When it was all over, I congratulated the guy and said that I really wanted to score it cheap. He said, “me too but I was afraid that you knew something I didn’t.”
So funny. The whole collector world is driven by buyers thinking that they are smarter than the guy selling the car.