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<b>Bonhams:</b> MANDELSHTAM, OSIP. 1891-1938. Autograph Manuscript, 2 pp, [Petersburg,] January 1913, entitled

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Buying on eBay -- It's all in how you look - By Bruce McKinney [1] Click BUY to search; [2] Insert search term; [3] Select search category By Bruce McKinney Buying on eBay is different from buying on listing sites and at traditional auctions. eBay mimics other forms of buying and can seem familiar but at heart it is a different buying option and a powerful one for those who understand its differences and become their master. eBay is a marketplace and a very large one. You can buy almost anything and periodically one of the "anythings" shows up on newspaper front pages. The fact that eBay covers almost every type of material masks the fact that it covers books, manuscripts and ephemera very thoroughly. Traditional book auctions are events, eBay auctions a continuum of lots posted by thousands of people. There is no pre-announcement, no warning. They show up -- typically listed for 5 to 10 days. Half sell, the balance is often reposted. Recently there have been about 500,000 books, manuscripts and ephemera up for sale. Among this mountain of material are great rarities and interesting and difficult to locate materials. The trick is knowing how to find them. Printed material on eBay is a chaos of possibilities that defeats every effort to see it as one would a traditional auction. eBay lets you see it this way because this is initially how you believe it should be seen. When you go to an auction you expect to browse the shelves or, if the sale is documented, read the descriptions. A typical traditional auction however has about 400 items, eBay on a typical day a thousand times more just in books, manuscripts and ephemera. Browsing doesn't work because these books lying side by side form a display 63 miles wide. The books at one end will be long since sold by the time you get to the other. Adding insult to injury, every book you examine will be replaced by another title so the line isn't actually 63 miles, it's never-ending. Many eBay virgins approach the listings with a traditional perspective and expectation and soon retire exhausted, never making the leap that makes buying on eBay potentially so effective. They simply look at the list of books as they expire and get manic as material falls into the abyss. At traditional auctions you can bring an open mind and consider all lots that strike your fancy. On eBay you must set parameters to screen out the debris that, left unfiltered, kills the enthusiasm of even the most inveterate buyer. To this many say "I don't know what I want." Well then, eBay is not for you. You are the blind man at the beauty contest. Even if only in a rudimentary way you need to establish search terms. Because the searches are fast and results easy to read anyone can experiment to find terms that are effective. Let's search in BOOKS for Poughkeepsie. There are 39 matches, instantly culled from 509,000 listed items. Wow, that was fast! Most are not antiquarian but it takes only a few moments to see this. One that is, an 1815 Poughkeepsie imprint has a starting bid of $20, no bids and 3 days to go. eBay gives me the option to WATCH THIS ITEM. Next I change the search category to COLLECTIBLES and find 101 matches for the term Poughkeepsie. Here you see postcards, plates, menus, two revolutionary war letters, railroad tickets, CDVs, very old beer and soda bottles and much more. Okay, you prefer Pittsfield. In books there are 40 matches, in collectibles 129. In a few days there will be a new wave of listings.
Buying on eBay -- It's all in how you look - By Bruce McKinney This is a relief map, an exceptional survival This is how you learn the difference between finite and infinite. In traditional auctions you expect to see selected and generally valuable material, the Kentucky Derby hopeful sitting in the 4th position. On eBay you see the wild ponies of Cape Hatteras and Chincoteague. Is there a derby winner among them? You decide. In traditional auctions the great material is concentrated in single sales. On eBay you use intellectual discipline to sweep away the trash leaving a continuing flow of self-selected material to consider that will include interesting items often at astonishingly low prices. By the searches you run you organize all books, manuscripts and ephemera into a uniquely personal ongoing auction, each set of search results a composite of items from many sellers. No one else will look at the auction flow with your perspective [and search terms] and that is one of the reasons you will find great material at very good prices. Your search terms will be the whip that tames the lion. Start by thinking about the line that Judge Smails says in Caddyshack, "You'll get nothing, and LIKE it." [1980] Well, it won't be that bad. Looking for Shakespeare? Try searching for Shakespear. That's an earlier spelling. Then develop a list of his printers and combine their last name with both versions of the Bard's name in separate searches. Once you begin to see matches read the better ones for new terms to use. In a month or so you'll have a glossary of search terms you will continue to amend and add to for years to come. No, you probably aren't going to find a first folio on eBay but you'll nevertheless find interesting material. For American printing in particular eBay is a goldmine of obscure material. Only about forty percent of older printed material has been authoritively catalogued and much of what is catalogued is barely more than reports of a sighting. In acquiring such material for $10 or $20 and rarely more than $50 you can reconstruct controversies, a life, life in a time and place, the history of bicycles, or anything else -- all limited only by your imagination. Of course it helps if the place you are looking for has an unusual name such as Poughkeepsie. Kingston is more difficult because it shows up in so many connections. Every objective will have unique challenges and they can all be overcome with diligence and experience. Following the material of Charles Evans Hughes could be interesting. Perhaps you want to start with some campaign buttons from his unsuccessful run for President in 1916. In time you may become more deeply committed and start to post letters using his 1962 4 cent commemorative stamp. You can buy them by the sheet on eBay. This may lead you into campaign memorabilia or to build one of those dark-side-of-the-moon collections of nominated candidates for Vice President who lost. This will at minimum permit you at dinner parties to sound like a genius as you casually list they who, from heaven or elsewhere, will appreciate you carrying their flickering torches deep into the 21st century. Such potential collections hide in plain site on eBay and on the listing sites. On eBay such material is cheap in part because it is divided up among a thousand sellers. For the most part, sellers simply sell pieces. You, the collector, aggregate the material and create value as you do it. What the piece means to you will rarely occur to them.
Buying on eBay -- It's all in how you look - By Bruce McKinney Rare evidence of a bygone era. Here are a few examples of what you can find on eBay. The first is a raised relief map of the White Mountains of New Hampshire. It is dated 1872 and is complete, an exceptional survival in very good condition. On eBay it cost $524. It is worth much more. Another is the Wallkill Valley Railroad Directory for 1888. In the OCLC [online computerized database of more than 39,000 libraries and their holdings] there is one copy for a version of the directory done in 1903. It has printed boards and is missing three leaves of advertising at the front. It cost $96. Both of these items were won on the same day recently. Think of it this way. Trash baskets all across North America and Europe are being emptied onto eBay. The material comes and goes. If you have created an effective matrix of search terms you will see your personally selected tiny fraction of it. Who knows? You may find the exercise as rewarding as I do. There are two ways to do this. You can do every step manually on eBay: www.eBay.com or you can build your search criteria in a Premium Subscription account on AE. To help you develop keywords we provide Get Keywords, a standard option in all AE Database searches. You then build a term list in our MatchMaker module and we run your terms against a complex group of eBay product categories and subcategories each night. Once matches are identified you then save the "good" ones to an eBay account. eBay then informs you as your lots approach their final day and hour. Toward the end of the sale you may commit yourself to a bid. On eBay your full bid will not show unless there is another bid within one click. Let's say the item has a starting price of $10 and the auction is 10 days. After three days someone bids $15. The bid that shows will be $10. Then a second bidder joins 2 days later and bids $12.50. The bid will then jump to $13 and the original bidder will still be on top. With an hour to go two more bidders join. One bids $20 and the active bid moves to $15.50. Finally, with a few seconds to go another party bids $40 and buys the item for $21. No one knows how much the winner would have paid. Of course if you put a $40 bid in early it may encourage bidders to up their bids and you will then pay more and potentially even lose the item altogether. Bidding late saves money and wins more often.
Buying on eBay -- It's all in how you look - By Bruce McKinney One report tracking new appearances on the net. Some rules I use: I keep an evolving set of terms in MatchMaker and capture my initial matches there. I currently, after more than two years, have 43 terms and phrases and receive about 80 matches a day. I check my MatchMaker matches every morning and quickly dispose of 97% of them. The rest I save in my eBay bidding account. Each morning I look at my eBay account and note what items are ending as well as what time they end. I then look on listing sites such as AddAll and ABE to see if the material is available there and if so, at what prices. I eliminate items that are common. Once I'm focused on the item I may decide to buy it but will buy the best copy for the money. In many cases a better copy is available on a listing site. I always buy the signed copy or one with a provenance if the price is within reason. I prefer copies that have a history. In building a collection, who owned a book may be a clue to where related material will be found. Collecting is cumulative so experience makes you more effective. The old guys in the book business may not be able to find their glasses but they often know where to find great material. By following the trail of related material you sometimes find great items. An advantage of MatchMaker over a self-organized eBay account for dealers and collectors is that we answer questions and we answer them seven days a week. The eBay process is initially unfamiliar. Questions need to be asked and answered. We answer the questions and 80% of those who give MatchMaker a serious evaluation find it to be what I learned two years ago: an amazing tool. eBay is an essential part of the collectibles market. It is also a deeply unfamiliar process. Many participants learn on their own but most big game hunters hire a guide. It saves time and brings this market quickly into focus. To try it on your own go to: www.eBay.com . To enter the world of eBay through MatchMaker [with database access and everyday support] click here to sign up or email me directly at bmckinney@americanaexchange.com and we'll get you started.

Buying on eBay -- It's all in how you look

- By Bruce McKinney

[1] Click BUY to search; [2] Insert search term; [3] Select search category

By Bruce McKinney

Buying on eBay is different from buying on listing sites and at traditional auctions. eBay mimics other forms of buying and can seem familiar but at heart it is a different buying option and a powerful one for those who understand its differences and become their master. eBay is a marketplace and a very large one. You can buy almost anything and periodically one of the "anythings" shows up on newspaper front pages. The fact that eBay covers almost every type of material masks the fact that it covers books, manuscripts and ephemera very thoroughly. Traditional book auctions are events, eBay auctions a continuum of lots posted by thousands of people. There is no pre-announcement, no warning. They show up -- typically listed for 5 to 10 days. Half sell, the balance is often reposted. Recently there have been about 500,000 books, manuscripts and ephemera up for sale. Among this mountain of material are great rarities and interesting and difficult to locate materials. The trick is knowing how to find them.

Printed material on eBay is a chaos of possibilities that defeats every effort to see it as one would a traditional auction. eBay lets you see it this way because this is initially how you believe it should be seen. When you go to an auction you expect to browse the shelves or, if the sale is documented, read the descriptions. A typical traditional auction however has about 400 items, eBay on a typical day a thousand times more just in books, manuscripts and ephemera. Browsing doesn't work because these books lying side by side form a display 63 miles wide. The books at one end will be long since sold by the time you get to the other. Adding insult to injury, every book you examine will be replaced by another title so the line isn't actually 63 miles, it's never-ending. Many eBay virgins approach the listings with a traditional perspective and expectation and soon retire exhausted, never making the leap that makes buying on eBay potentially so effective. They simply look at the list of books as they expire and get manic as material falls into the abyss. At traditional auctions you can bring an open mind and consider all lots that strike your fancy. On eBay you must set parameters to screen out the debris that, left unfiltered, kills the enthusiasm of even the most inveterate buyer. To this many say "I don't know what I want." Well then, eBay is not for you. You are the blind man at the beauty contest. Even if only in a rudimentary way you need to establish search terms. Because the searches are fast and results easy to read anyone can experiment to find terms that are effective.

Let's search in BOOKS for Poughkeepsie. There are 39 matches, instantly culled from 509,000 listed items. Wow, that was fast! Most are not antiquarian but it takes only a few moments to see this. One that is, an 1815 Poughkeepsie imprint has a starting bid of $20, no bids and 3 days to go. eBay gives me the option to WATCH THIS ITEM. Next I change the search category to COLLECTIBLES and find 101 matches for the term Poughkeepsie. Here you see postcards, plates, menus, two revolutionary war letters, railroad tickets, CDVs, very old beer and soda bottles and much more. Okay, you prefer Pittsfield. In books there are 40 matches, in collectibles 129. In a few days there will be a new wave of listings.

Buying on eBay -- It's all in how you look

- By Bruce McKinney

This is a relief map, an exceptional survival

This is how you learn the difference between finite and infinite. In traditional auctions you expect to see selected and generally valuable material, the Kentucky Derby hopeful sitting in the 4th position. On eBay you see the wild ponies of Cape Hatteras and Chincoteague. Is there a derby winner among them? You decide. In traditional auctions the great material is concentrated in single sales. On eBay you use intellectual discipline to sweep away the trash leaving a continuing flow of self-selected material to consider that will include interesting items often at astonishingly low prices. By the searches you run you organize all books, manuscripts and ephemera into a uniquely personal ongoing auction, each set of search results a composite of items from many sellers. No one else will look at the auction flow with your perspective [and search terms] and that is one of the reasons you will find great material at very good prices.

Your search terms will be the whip that tames the lion. Start by thinking about the line that Judge Smails says in Caddyshack, "You'll get nothing, and LIKE it." [1980] Well, it won't be that bad. Looking for Shakespeare? Try searching for Shakespear. That's an earlier spelling. Then develop a list of his printers and combine their last name with both versions of the Bard's name in separate searches. Once you begin to see matches read the better ones for new terms to use. In a month or so you'll have a glossary of search terms you will continue to amend and add to for years to come. No, you probably aren't going to find a first folio on eBay but you'll nevertheless find interesting material.

For American printing in particular eBay is a goldmine of obscure material. Only about forty percent of older printed material has been authoritively catalogued and much of what is catalogued is barely more than reports of a sighting. In acquiring such material for $10 or $20 and rarely more than $50 you can reconstruct controversies, a life, life in a time and place, the history of bicycles, or anything else -- all limited only by your imagination. Of course it helps if the place you are looking for has an unusual name such as Poughkeepsie. Kingston is more difficult because it shows up in so many connections. Every objective will have unique challenges and they can all be overcome with diligence and experience.

Following the material of Charles Evans Hughes could be interesting. Perhaps you want to start with some campaign buttons from his unsuccessful run for President in 1916. In time you may become more deeply committed and start to post letters using his 1962 4 cent commemorative stamp. You can buy them by the sheet on eBay. This may lead you into campaign memorabilia or to build one of those dark-side-of-the-moon collections of nominated candidates for Vice President who lost. This will at minimum permit you at dinner parties to sound like a genius as you casually list they who, from heaven or elsewhere, will appreciate you carrying their flickering torches deep into the 21st century. Such potential collections hide in plain site on eBay and on the listing sites. On eBay such material is cheap in part because it is divided up among a thousand sellers. For the most part, sellers simply sell pieces. You, the collector, aggregate the material and create value as you do it. What the piece means to you will rarely occur to them.

Buying on eBay -- It's all in how you look

- By Bruce McKinney

Rare evidence of a bygone era.

Here are a few examples of what you can find on eBay. The first is a raised relief map of the White Mountains of New Hampshire. It is dated 1872 and is complete, an exceptional survival in very good condition. On eBay it cost $524. It is worth much more.

Another is the Wallkill Valley Railroad Directory for 1888. In the OCLC [online computerized database of more than 39,000 libraries and their holdings] there is one copy for a version of the directory done in 1903. It has printed boards and is missing three leaves of advertising at the front. It cost $96.

Both of these items were won on the same day recently.

Think of it this way. Trash baskets all across North America and Europe are being emptied onto eBay. The material comes and goes. If you have created an effective matrix of search terms you will see your personally selected tiny fraction of it. Who knows? You may find the exercise as rewarding as I do.

There are two ways to do this. You can do every step manually on eBay: www.eBay.com or you can build your search criteria in a Premium Subscription account on AE. To help you develop keywords we provide Get Keywords, a standard option in all AE Database searches. You then build a term list in our MatchMaker module and we run your terms against a complex group of eBay product categories and subcategories each night. Once matches are identified you then save the "good" ones to an eBay account. eBay then informs you as your lots approach their final day and hour. Toward the end of the sale you may commit yourself to a bid.

On eBay your full bid will not show unless there is another bid within one click. Let's say the item has a starting price of $10 and the auction is 10 days. After three days someone bids $15. The bid that shows will be $10. Then a second bidder joins 2 days later and bids $12.50. The bid will then jump to $13 and the original bidder will still be on top. With an hour to go two more bidders join. One bids $20 and the active bid moves to $15.50. Finally, with a few seconds to go another party bids $40 and buys the item for $21. No one knows how much the winner would have paid. Of course if you put a $40 bid in early it may encourage bidders to up their bids and you will then pay more and potentially even lose the item altogether. Bidding late saves money and wins more often.

Buying on eBay -- It's all in how you look

- By Bruce McKinney

One report tracking new appearances on the net.

Some rules I use:

I keep an evolving set of terms in MatchMaker and capture my initial matches there. I currently, after more than two years, have 43 terms and phrases and receive about 80 matches a day.
I check my MatchMaker matches every morning and quickly dispose of 97% of them. The rest I save in my eBay bidding account.
Each morning I look at my eBay account and note what items are ending as well as what time they end. I then look on listing sites such as AddAll and ABE to see if the material is available there and if so, at what prices. I eliminate items that are common. Once I'm focused on the item I may decide to buy it but will buy the best copy for the money. In many cases a better copy is available on a listing site. I always buy the signed copy or one with a provenance if the price is within reason. I prefer copies that have a history. In building a collection, who owned a book may be a clue to where related material will be found. Collecting is cumulative so experience makes you more effective. The old guys in the book business may not be able to find their glasses but they often know where to find great material. By following the trail of related material you sometimes find great items.

An advantage of MatchMaker over a self-organized eBay account for dealers and collectors is that we answer questions and we answer them seven days a week. The eBay process is initially unfamiliar. Questions need to be asked and answered. We answer the questions and 80% of those who give MatchMaker a serious evaluation find it to be what I learned two years ago: an amazing tool.

eBay is an essential part of the collectibles market. It is also a deeply unfamiliar process. Many participants learn on their own but most big game hunters hire a guide. It saves time and brings this market quickly into focus. To try it on your own go to: www.eBay.com . To enter the world of eBay through MatchMaker [with database access and everyday support] click here to sign up or email me directly at bmckinney@americanaexchange.com and we'll get you started.