The Perfect Song Blog

Okay, here’s the danger of being an ebayholic. A few weeks ago I came across a lot (collection) of vintage paperbacks. Popular Library. All published in the 1940s. I studied them. They were all in good shape. Two of them, I knew, were worth about $70 each.

I wanted them.

I put in a bid of $15. They just sat for a week with no activity. Then someone bid $17. So I immediately bid $20. No one else bid. We were down to three days, then two.

Then a dealer came in and outbid me. I let it sit until the night the bidding ended. I went in and bid $25. I was outbid. I went to $30.

Outbid again.

How much was I willing to pay? I figured I could go to $50, so I punched in the numbers. I had winning bid.

There was an hour left. I went on and did other things, forgetting the bid. At the last minute—literally– I remembered and rushed back to the site. The dealer had outbid me!

I threw in a new bid, putting me up to $60. I was outbid.

Now I was in a mode of combination panic and competiveness. With 33 seconds left I rushed to the keyboard and typed in $70. I hit the bid button, then the confirm, hoping I could get through with just the few seconds that were ticking away.

The moment I hit the confirm button I realized that after the$7 I hit the 0 button twice.

I had bid $700!

I broke into a cold sweat. $700 is like my life savings. Then I realized that eBay only takes your bid in 10% increments. But what if he had bid $200 or $300? Time moved so slow that if a hummingbird had passed in front of me I would have seen its wing movement.

Finally the sign came up that I had won the bid. Of course I had won. I’m an idiot who bid $700! I looked, cautiously (terrified, actually) to see what I’d actually paid.

I was relieved to find that I got out of it for a relatively low $97.

I walked away, lesson learned.

Actually, I’m not really sure what the lesson is except, if you’re an ebayholic, for God’s sakes, don’t panic.

In my previous post, I confessed how creating a website devoted to William Ard reactivated my addiction to vintage paperbacks, and eBay was the great enabler.

Ard died quite young and produced a limited body of work. It didn’t take me long to acquire the titles I needed. One night while poking around I decided to search for vintage paperbacks in general.

What in God’s name was I thinking? I lived and breathed vintage paperbacks throughout the 1990s. I traveled to flea markets, rummage sales, and participated in phone auctions (antiquated, yes, but that’s what we did in that century.)

List upon list unfolded before me. I scrolled through, pulling up individual lots, telling myself there might be an Ard title in the collection. But in truth, it was to savor the covers and titles. It all came back to me. I realized I could tell at a glance whether a book was worth anything by the publisher, author or cover art. I knew the publishers’ logos by heart from years of studying paperbacks.

I knew cover artists, and of course, authors. I found a particularly good copy of John D. MacDonald’s The Brass Cupcake. Well, I thought, just one. I can stop with just one.

I put in a bid.

I came across a near mint copy of The Luscious Puritan, a worthwhile investment just for the cover. One more won’t hurt, I convinced myself.

By the week’s end I was bidding on 15 items. I checked the bids every night. Sometimes I checked them at lunch hour at the office. I checked the email for notes from sellers. I did more searches. At night, even before I worked on my Ard site, which is my passion, I had to check eBay. Two hours later I would rip myself away, reminding myself of the addictive nature of all this.

I realized that there is no such thing as “social bidding.”

I had not only fallen off the wagon, I looked around and the wagon was nowhere in sight.

I’m not going to fight it anymore. I’m an addict and I admit it. I can’t stop with one or two bids. I’m in a sea of books and they’re all for sale. For sale by bid, the most seductive, adventurous, adrenaline-pumping way of buying.

It’s the search, the chase. It’s that initial bid and the sense of competition, the need to stay in the fight when another person outbids you. Your mind becomes distorted. Reality changes. You are committed to winning.

You learn to hate seeing the message “you’ve been outbid!” It’s like an admonishment, as if you’re a lesser person. You go to the box that says you have to bid at least 10 percent more. In fact the grand eBay Poobah tells you the minimum you can bid.

You type in the numbers and hit the bid button. If it says, “you are still outbid,” you put in more numbers . It’s so easy. “Congratulations, you are the high bidder!” Yes! I did it. I beat the other person . . .for the moment.

Losing hurts. It’s a lonely feeling. But if you’re a real addict, you know life goes on and you immediately continue onto new searches, new bids, new rounds. . . .

Friends told me to relinquish control, that the addiction is beyond a mere human. I must turn myself over to God and let Him help.

I did. I turned it over to Him, then put in a bid on a very rare pocket book copy of The Old Testament.

I knew all was lost when a pop-up screen told me: “You’ve been outbid, by God.”

Enough. I’d like to hear from you. Are you an eBayholic? Tell me about it. Share your story.  Use “comments” or email me at theperfectsong@gmail.com

My name is Dennis Miller and I’m an ebayholic.

Yes, I’m addicted. I thought I could just visit the site, have a quick peek and walk away, a social eBayer as it were. But no, I found myself gradually going back more and more until it became once a day, then twice. My God, sometimes I even signed on in the morning. I don’t know how this happened.

I’m not proud of it.

Let me give you some background. Let me talk about it. I need to talk about it, to share my story.

I first logged onto eBay in the 1990s, — wait! – let me leave for a moment and check. . . . Yes, I joined November 27, 1999, as the door closed quickly on the 20^th century. At that time I was interested in . . .oh, God, I don’t even know what I was interested in. But I bid on some things and won and played around with it for maybe a couple years. It was cheap high, but nothing serious.

Then I walked away from it. Cold turkey! I didn’t look back. I had neither need nor desire.

Nearly 10 years went by. Any of you my age knows how fast 10 years goes by. A blink. A wink. A heartbeat and –whoosh—a decade is behind you.

Then, in 2007 I started a website on a forgotten hard-boiled detective writer named William Ard. I had written an article about him for a magazine in 1992. I suddenly had the urge –no, a craving!—to start a web site and write about him, include photos of the numerous paperback book covers. I wanted to share him with the world and there is no better place than a web site.

I needed (and I say this in a hushed voice, looking to my right and left; God knows who is listening to all this) books. I needed books to photograph and upload onto the site.

My shoulders sag and I stare vacantly at my shoes as I admit this. I returned to eBay. . . . Yes! Nearly ten years clean and I returned to eBay. This time it wasn’t gradual. I strode through the cyber bat-winged doors, flinging them back and ordering auctions straight up!

I wanted Ard books! I sought them out with the full knowledge that I would pay any price for a first edition vintage paper back in very good condition or better. No one, please understand, no one would outbid me. I had the means and the will.

Needless to say, I found titles and I bid. And I won. With each title or lot I placed an initial bid with a maximum bid. As other bidders weighed in, I watched them carefully. I hit on their links to see who they were, if they were a casual collector or a seller. I was unmerciful in my quest to gather Ard titles. No one would get in my way.

As the bidding of each auction neared its end, I stayed on the site and hit the refresh button every 30 seconds, thwarting anyone who tried to come in at the last minute. Swoop in and throw another 10% on? Forget it, competitor! I toss in 20%!

In the first few weeks, I won every bid. Yes, it felt good. And no, I felt no remorse. I had a William Ard Website and I was determined to become the world’s leading expert in the works and life of this author. It’s a narrow, specialized field, but please try to understand the need, the attraction, the addiction of being the world’s best something or other.

Little did I know it would lead to bigger, stronger addictions that I’m in the middle of. Yes, even as you read this I’m struggling with a force more powerful than anything I ever imagined.

It’s pulling me into it’s black hole even as I write. I never thought it would go as far as it did. I thought I was in control.

Hard as it is, I’ll complete my confession in Part 2.

If you’d like to comment, please do. I could use the support.