Teleavia on eBay
 

Cool looking set. Just how rare are these?
I hate when there's an unknown reserve!

http://imgs.inkfrog.com/pix/snoutchip/telea1.jpg

Rare, although I think there has been at least one other in the last year or two. Since they receive an incompatible signal, it would be an expensive doorstop in the US. On the other hand, that means you could skip all that pesky electronic restoration :)

I would be nervous about shipping, for obvious reasons.

The bit about the missing chrome strip and black tape sounds familiar. I wonder if this has been on eBay before? Or perhaps they all have that problem.

Phil Nelson

Closed with reserve not met. High bid was $861.

Phil

So what's the point of reserves? I see this happen all the time. Why doesn't the seller just set the initial bid at the reserve amount?

Because many bidders are not interested in an auction unless there
is a chance of getting the item for a price below the fair market value.
An early Motorola color TV recently sold for nearly $10K on Ebay
(there is a thread on these forums), and the initial bid was set at
$9.99. If the seller had asked for a starting price of $1000 or so,
the item might not have sold or the high bid might have been lower.

Sure, I get that, but I've seen plenty where few bid because there is an unknown reserve. Like that Natalie Kalmus last week. Once there's an initial bid and the reserve isn't met, often no one else bothers to bid because it becomes clear that they aren't going to get it cheap.

There was also an instance where I really wanted an item and the bidding just didn't reach his reserve. I had to contact the seller and have him re-list with a 'buy-it-now' option for the reserve amount to finally get it.

I guess the most interesting answers could be provided by Ebay sellers who
use the reserve feature...

It has been relisted with a BIN of $2,750.

That's probably what the reserve was, or at least half that. Not worth it IMO.

Ebays fees confuse me sometimes, but I think it is cheaper to start the listing at 99 cents with a $2750 reserve than it is to start the listing at $2750.

Doing it this way works in live auction situations. Human nature at work. Many, many times I've seen an auctioneer start the bidding at, say, $100. No bids so he drops to $75, $50, $25...down to maybe $5 before someone bids. Then it quickly gets bid up to $100, $200-maybe many hundreds. Everyone was sitting there waiting to see if they could grab it for nothing.

I've been to radio club auctions where they do not announce the reserve price up front. If, after bidding is closed, the reserve has not been reached the high bidder will be asked if he is willing to increase his bid to the reserve price. I won my Transvision this way...I was top bidder at 20 bucks...I think I only needed to increase it to maybe $35. It may sound clunky but in that situation it works quite well.