U.S. Online Lotology Auction Sites
There are only about 100 + viable U.S. online auction sites. Where
should you look in this crowded field to find interesting lotology items
for sale?
The 600 pound gorilla among all these sites continues to be ebay.
There is some question now whether or not ebay has adopted a no S/V, no
MT policy.
Early in December two GLC members received ebay notifications their
auctions
of sample void tickets were in violation of ebay policy and these
auctions
would be deleted. In both instances, ebay informed winning bidders
they did
not need to honor their bids. While this was happening, other ebay
auctions
of a similar nature were either left unchanged or similarly deleted.
A very
nice collection of early VA mint tickets was deleted by ebay only
to be
re-listed a few days later after the seller (non club member) filed
an
appeal. Overall implementation of this new ebay policy was extremely
haphazard. Ebay reasoning goes something like this: we don’t have
these tickets in our possession therefore we can’t verify your sale is
offering a legitimate non viable gambling collectible.
It’s not clear exactly what ebay will do in the future regarding
auction listings of MT and S/V tickets. In the past 10 days most sellers
appear to have had no interference from ebay. Mints and sample voids have
been offered by several sellers, both club members and non members. Perhaps
the holiday crush of over 3 million different ebay listings has made it
near impossible for the ebay monitors to keep track of lotology offerings?
To visit ebay use this URL: http://www.ebay.com/index.html
then type ‘lottery’ or ‘lottery ticket’ into the ebay search engine. Using
‘lottery ticket’ will greatly narrow your search but this means you’ll
end up missing those items where the seller has used only the word ‘lottery’
in their item description. For example, when a non club member says “I
have 9 great lottery items for sale, these are old stub like Illinois tickets
with a picture of Herbert Hoover on them” ( ! ) it’s unlikely you’ll see
the auction if you’ve used ‘lottery ticket’ for your search. Narrowing
your search focus is possible at most auction sites but there are positive
and negative consequences when you do so.
What other sites are worth mentioning?
Try the newest and most lotology friendly site! Auctionables
at:
http://www.auctionables.com/cgi-bin/cgi_main.cgi
This web address takes you to a very young ebay challenger (6 weeks
old!) where technical problems and bugs are still being worked out. The
people building Auctionables have warmly welcomed lotology into their auction
site and have even created an individual category for ‘Lottery Tickets’,
nicely sub-divided into US, non US, mint tickets, sample tickets, used
tickets, paper tickets, and misc. Several club members have been seen listing
items and some of these auctions have had very good results. Auctionables
as an auction site needs and welcomes our support!!
Other important auction sites to consider:
Amazon -
http://s1.amazon.com/exec/varzea/subst/home/home.html/102-7669527-3219212
Yahoo -
http://auctions.yahoo.com/
Tripod -
http://auctions.tripod.com/
MSN -
http://auctions.msn.com/
Yahoo and Amazon in particular have both had one or more very interesting
auctions of lottery related materials by non club members. Many times discovering
a nice lotology listing on one of these less visited sites equals your
having minimal lotology competition when trying to win the item.
To help make life easier keeping track of all this action I recommend
you util ize the Bidder’s Edge at: http://www.biddersedge.com/
What is Bidder’s Edge? Bidder’s Edge is not another online auction site.
Bidder’s Edge is a wonderful tool that will search all these other auction
sites (except newly created Auctionables) for you. Go to Bidder’s Edge,
search ‘lottery’ and you’ll immediately see a compilation of every ‘lottery’
item on their entire list of auction sites. This includes ebay, Amazon.com
and Yahoo. Bidder’s Edge also will allow you to create your own personal
market watch where new listings of items you’re interested in are sent
to you via e mail on a daily basis.
Sometimes just showing up for an auction is all you need do to win
a ticket. Other times bidding will be frustrating because you’ll
lose out to someone willing to spend what you feel is an outrageous amount
of money. Win some, lose some. This reminds me of how it is scratching
instant lottery tickets!
Lotology online is new and we’re all blazing this trail together.
Feel free to ask questions, share helpful hints, etc.
Always, good collecting!
John Holt
Send comments
and questions to:
P.O.Box 715
Author
of the "Auction Action"' GLC column
St. Peters MO 63376
John
Holt
GLC# 193
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