Unusual Bidding Patterns

An odd bidding pattern occurred in early 2008 with some ordinary Judy Bolton tweed books with dust jackets that in some cases sold for in the hundreds of dollars. The books will never be worth that much and can easily be found for less. Since the buyers seemed only to want the books from certain sellers for some reason, other copies offered by other sellers sold for normal prices at the same time.

It always makes me suspicious when I spot unusual bidding patterns, and I wonder whether shilling is involved. Two buyers caused the early 2008 Judy Bolton prices to be extremely high. The books were ordinary tweed books with dust jackets. Some of the books were low-numbered books and sold for hundreds of dollars. One of the buyers has the masked ID of w***r. The second buyer has the masked ID of 2***2, and this second person won most of the auctions at absolutely outrageous amounts. I know the full IDs of both of these people because the winning bidders' IDs were not yet masked in early 2008.

The buyer w***r has surfaced again and is driving some prices up to unusual levels. As before, this buyer is buying large quantities of books from just certain sellers. I brought up the bidder list of w***r (this still can be done so long as the full ID is known). I took screen caps of the bidder list but removed the buyer's ID. I did leave the sellers IDs, since this information is public, and these same listings can be brought up under their completed item lists. Every item in this list was purchased by w***r:


Around 50 of the books were purchased from just one seller, and many of these listings sold for well above value. For instance, several low-numbered tweed Dana Girls books sold for $60.00 while other copies offered by other sellers have sold for under $10.00. The obvious conclusion is shilling, but I tend to think not since the same pattern occurred earlier in the year with this person and someone else, with the other person successfully winning the auctions.

I have been trying to find a reason for this odd bidding pattern, aside from the fact that this is someone who has deep pockets. All of these books are described as fine, nice, and near mint. Many are described as first editions. The books have dust jackets that are in excellent condition. This is a buyer who seems to want perfect books. Certainly if a seller is listing a bunch of books that are in excellent condition, someone might bid very high on all of them in an attempt to get all of them. The buyer could also desire books that all came from the same original owner.

I feel like most of us who collect series books are not so concerned with our books coming from the same original owner or for the books to be completely perfect. After all, if all of our books were completely pristine in every way, would we want to risk reading them? Most of us probably don't mind having our books not completely perfect, so we have trouble understanding why someone would pay $60.00 for a $10.00 book. I'd rather take a copy that is somewhat less than perfect and pay a more reasonable amount.