eBay bargains

[Bokbag]

I think it’s fair to say there are mixed opinions about eBay. I still have never got over the idea of someone going through the effort of listing a programme for 5x it’s value that never sells!! But it is also responsible for 80% of my collection at best guess. Sometimes, when the stars align, you can get really good deals.

So I am interested as to what other people’s best deal was on eBay? Like for whatever reason you got a programme on auction that others missed etc. Doesn’t have to be a huge reduction. My most recent example was being the only bidder on a 1963 league cup final Villa leg for £40, another one went for £56 the next day?! I also saw that someone had managed to get a bundle of league cup finals from America, including the two legged finals held at Leicester for £40.

Any others? All relative of course

[PompeyPhil]

My Best Buy from EBay was a 1948/49 season Portsmouth v Newport County FA Cup pirate programme. Buy it now listing £4.99 + Postage. Still can’t believe it was listed at that price. Another bargain in my eyes was a recent successful EBay Auction purchase for a pre-war 1928-29 season Portsmouth v Sunderland League programme. Only one bidder, me! £60 + postage. Doesn’t always work out that way but sometimes Gems can be picked up for little money! As a seller my worse sell was a Pompey book signed by several of the Pompey 1948-49,1949-50 Championship side.....Sold for 99p+postage. Someone got a bargain and I learnt that starting every listing with 99p isn’t always the best idea! Happy collecting!

[Raxfactor]

I have been collecting Manchester United Munich season 1957/58 and a few months back someone listed several Arsenal progs from 57/58 as bin £2.70 ish each in amongst them was Man Utd it had a slight fold but that apart excellent, things like this don't happen very often to me helps to iron out the bumps when more often than not I feel I have paid over odds for Wigan non league items.

[Dorking]

I just love it when there is something rare listed that I've been waiting years to appear. I stick my one and only bid on it, and to my surprise, nobody else bids so I get it for a fraction of what I was willing to pay!

I must say, in recent months I have been very pleased to see that if you 'watch' an item you are interested in, quite often the seller makes you an offer (a reduced price), which is good to persuade me when I am dithering!

[Bokbag]

I should also add that a couple of weeks ago I bought the yellow Mexico 1970 World Cup programme buy it now for 40 quid. Couldn’t believe it! No writing and an intact spine as well.

That’s true actually there has been a lot of reduced offers for watchers recently.

[manchesterunitedman1]

This was my best bargain off ebay ever.

https://flic.kr/p/7SjKU3
https://flic.kr/p/7SjL43

This item went the full distance and I was able to secure it for £225!

Perhaps only one of 2 that are still in existence, but maybe where there are 2-there could be 3!. I am assuming that one resides in the inventory at Manchester United's Museum, if not well if there is one......

This was found by a house clearer in North Wales in the drawer of a writing bureau maybe 10-12 years ago. I enquired after the auction if there was anything else football wise with this and the answer was no, nothing, so I asked whose house he cleared and the reply was a Miss Davies, who was related to the original owner of MUFC Mr. John Henry Davies!.

Yes, sometimes these things can happen-this has to be one of the 10 items I would take away on a Desert Island if I had to choose!


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[Thedoog10]

Picked up a Wolves 67/68 scrapbooks couple of years ago over 100 pages and match reports on every game home and away.
Negotiated with the vendor he was looking at £80+but i put the only bid in and won payed only £25 was prepared to pay treble that it was such a outstanding item and just what i was looking for so was well pleased with that purchase.

[Raxfactor]

Well I think this is a bargain and there are still some to be had on eBay now 1966 Uncovered a hardback book 256 pages 250 photographs covering the tournament comment from Bobby Charlton and Franz Beckenbauer, it arrived in the post this morning £2.71 incl p/p well pleased.

[GaryF]

Apologies I bit late responding to this discussion, but I would like to add couple of examples of bargain 'bulk deals' I got via ebay.

I only started collecting Millwall FC programmes a year ago in February. So I was looking for big, bulk deals to help fill my massive gaps.

In a tight, up to the last second bidding battle on an auction of 300 (approx) x MFC Home progs & teamsheets (mostly 2009 to 2014, but plenty from other seasons too) most from a Director's Box clearance.......I managed to win with a £31 bid with 3 seconds to go.

When I collected, the seller couldn't find all the progs & was about 50 short. He assured me he had another box somewhere & would call me when he found them.

Sure enough, week later, he calls & I turn up and he gives me another box of around 250 more progs ( & he doesn't even ask me for any more money, even though it was only supposed to be just another 50 progs, not 250!)

Great deal, and all the programmes, bar a few damaged in storage, are in mint condition, unused, half with teamsheets & tickets, plus play-off progs & other bits & pieces.

So for £30 I got over 500 modern, mint, progs for my collection ( over 220 of which I needed, including enough to complete near 4/5 seasons in one go). That worked out approx 6p a programme, & the doubles & ones I didn't need I've managed to sell or swap on, and I've only about 20 of them left now to get rid of. As a collecter, it was an unbelievable good deal.

And that's not including the 5 seasons worth of tickets & teamsheets that came too, many of which I swapped, or sold for other progs I needed.

Overall, it my best buy - And I've got to add that the seller (a fellow Docker) was a really great guy, so helpful & generous and happy to see his stuff go to a fellow supporter & collector.

Anymore Collectors been lucky with bulk?

[Auchinleckian]

Just to add to the issue Pompey Phil noted about leaving items to the vagaries of the ebay market with a 99p reserve.

About five years back we were due to go away on holiday to Tenerife for a fortnight in midwinter. As I was having a clearout of non club specific handbooks at the time I made a list of about 20 pre WW2 handbooks, mainly Nottingham Posts and Sentinels from the Potteries. I put these on at just 99 pence reserve and made the listing start after we were away, and due to finish the day before we came home.

The vast majority never got past £2, and about half of them only sold for 99 pence. Somebody got a rare bargain as none of them passed the £5 mark. Lesson learnt, but as I've had plenty of bargains over the years on ebay it evens itself out over time. I certainly wouldn't do that again though.

[pafcprogs]

There never seems to be much logic to eBay. I often resist stuff that hasn't sold at a low start price ad then have a bidding war break out!

As for bulk purchases I have had a few....a suitcase that revealed a 19060's European Cup Final plus ticket which sold for £300ish, and the best was a £50 job lot of Pompey bits that also contained a previously unseen Headington post war friendly that was contested by the to Headington collectors up to just under a grand.

In fact I would go so far as to say the value is in the job lots rather than the sorted ones ....and not always football items, or even sporting. I bought a lot for some pre war Rugby items but the postcards , stamp and stamp albums and other random bits went for a ton.

I also bought a £10 lot of ephemera which contained a pre war bunch of cricket magazines which went very well to Australia plus a Eurovision Song contest programme and running order sheet from the 1960's at the BBC which again went dfor just north of £300


Mind you the garage is full of all the bits that were left over from those plus the lots that did not fare so well, so I am probably about even overall:)
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Currently disposing of my collection so please email any wants lists to [email protected].
Most Plymouth post 1959 but plenty of others including reserves, friendlies, Cup Finals Internationals and Club issues, handbooks and other sports.