Hello OF,

I have been closely following the following auction of, what to any collector eyes, might be an attractive piece.



Link to the auction: https://www.ebay.es/itm/RARE-ENICAR...17-JEWEL-Wrist-Watch-TURTLE-LUGS/373153746925Purchases made through these links may earn this site a commission from the eBay Partner Network

Why would this beat up watch seem attractive? Well, under the heavily scratched bezel lies an attractive dial with, apparently incredible lume. Also, Enicar is a well respected brand among collectors (although undervalued IMHO).


Nevertheless, pricing seems a bit "high" for a model in this condition, specially when this watch is sold as a project.

If we go to the bid history, we can find some initial bidders pushing up the price towards a very reasonable 100 US$. Nothing fishy until now.


My problem starts here: there are two accounts that have engaged on a "bid war". Note the eBay "level" of each account and the dates.


One of the accounts, the one with 0 level, has a 60% bidding rate with this seller on a total of 53 bids. Out of those 53, 32 are on this item. The other one has a 16% bidding rate with this seller, but has only 16 total bids on his account in the past 30 days (3 of which are on this item).

I don't know, but this seems just the old trick of a fake account pushing prices up until the seller's comfortable price. All in all, this is just my opinion and could be wrong. Would love to hear thoughts on this!

Stay safe out there!

Note: at the time of posting, there are 6h left on this item to bid.

 

Classic case of shilling. Let the seller win his own auction.

 

Unfortunately, they found a sucker in h**5. If he would just stop bidding, the watch would be relisted. Obviously 9**1 isn't going to pay for it.

 

Thank you for your input, Dan. A pity, because this watch could make someone's day!

 

Yeah, I watched this one too and saw the same thing happening. There is one that finished last week on the high side of sane but I didn’t look at that bid history- just figured the market has gone silly on these. Would be worth seeing if that was also shilled.
I thank you for using this listing as an example of some of the schemes that are used to drive prices up. I rarely think to check bid history- this thread reminds me that I should more often when I’m planing on getting into the mix.

 

And those aren't turtle lugs...

 

The one that ended last week was.

 

Interesting. IMHO, a less desirable dial. Is this the same seller?

 

Know-nothing lazy eBay sellers are constantly cutting-and-pasting from other listings.

 

I don’t think so. And only 4 bidders, all with high counts, and started at $699- so that one went they it should have.

 

We could email the seller and tell him we’ll report him.
For the record this is who the seller is.
Actually maybe we should just report him.

 

I don't understand how to interpret the bid history in the OP's image. It seems to indicate a bidder raising their own bid by some dollar amount at various intervals, but for no reason since there are no other bidders during this time. Why would you do that if you were trying to drive the price up on your own auction? Raising your maximum bid, when you are already the highest bidder, doesn't change the price of the item - it just means someone else will have to bid more to outbid you. Wouldn't it make much more sense to wait for someone to outbid you before trying to drive the price up?

 

That watch looks like it could clean up nicely, but as mentioned the shill bidding is off-putting. I have owned a few of these and the prices have been fairly consistent between $700-1000 if I remember correctly.

Here are a few that I owned:



I prefer the straight lug variant. These are 34mm watches and the longer lugs give it more wrist presence.

To me the Healthways dial is actually more desirable as it was made for a US diving store.

 

I reported him and messaged him that I did.

 

You are totally right in here. It would've made more sense to raise it once every real bid, but the fake bidder decided to constantly increase their maximum bid. Maybe it's the first time he does this (?) As far as I can see on his offerings, watches aren't his thing, meaning that he was unsure of the price each time he "outbidded" himself hence the high amount of bids.

 

This is actually the best idea. Not only report him, but also email him or contact him through eBay to put pressure on him and, hopefully, making him take the ad down.

 

Wasn't aware of that. But my point was going towards lume condition (one has a more attractive color than the other)! But I'll look into Healthways dials, thanks!

 

I already did (see above).
I’m sure he /she won’t take the ad down, just end the shilling and let the newbie win and be content with the existing high bid. Unless someone from here of course joins in the fray

 

This is what they said in response to me

 

Ha ha. as I said I too expected to receive verbal abuse.
Not really that much but I won’t respond.
It will be interesting to see what happens.
Suppose it were true and there’s a complete newbie indeed bidding up?
Only time will tell.