Subject:
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Re: Blue Hopper Car Mania...
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Mon, 11 Oct 1999 01:00:18 GMT
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Reply-To:
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lpieniazek@novera.com&NoSpam&
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Viewed:
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865 times
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I figured I'd let this percolate for a while before I responded.
First a side point, auctioning IS selling. What else would it be? You
all know my stance on it, it's the fairest way to allocate a scarce
quantity. And it is a kind of sale.
Now, I'm not sure that I feel any obligation to defend my actions, so
don't take this as a defense. It's merely an explanation for those that
might be interested. In fact I don't even have to explain my actions,
for that matter so consider yourself lucky I decided to.
There has been a lot bandied about lately that buying a large quantity
and then reselling is somehow wrong. Why is that, exactly? The argument
seems to be (and I may be straw dogging if I don't get it right, but I'm
in an airport between flights so this is a bit rushed) that everyone is
entitled to a "fair" share, and that arbitrage is wrong.
Nonsense. Perhaps in Marxitopia. Setting aside what a "fair" share is,
as an undecideable concept.
When I first found out about this little opportunity (and in the grand
scheme of things it IS small potatoes... I made more than I could
possibly make off blue hoppers in the recent ICGE IPO (1) without
actually DOING anything other than saying yes two times) it struck me
that I wanted a LOT of these and always have.
So I put in for 500, I had no idea how many there were going to be.
There could have been thousands and I could have been stuck with all of
them. That's the risk in arbitrage, there may not be any market! Paul
said there were likely to be less and suggested 200 as what he would
give me. Paul only actually allocated me 96 once all was said and done.
And I was A OK with that, he decided to allocate more to other people.
His goods, his choice (someone else may have said "hey you promised me
200 I want my 200" but not me. I was willing to take whatever he'd
allocate me and I told him that the first time we talked)
He told me that I was performing a valuable service by being there to
backstop his entire order. He was leery and was not going to order very
many at all, he was afraid of being stuck with them. This despite all of
us here, including YOU Simon, supposedly giving him a sense of what was
what and what demand would be. I repeat, Paul sold me my 96 quite gladly
and was quite relieved. He got his price without having to do a lot of
onesies and twosies.
So to sum up, I was there from the beginning, I provided the certainty
that if Paul ordered a lot, I'd sop them up, and Paul is pleased with
the return he's gotten as well as the publicity
Now, another charge might be that I somehow hoarded the info.
Again, nonsense. While I have taken the position that I'm not keen on
sellers hiding availability of widely available goods to make them
appear scarce like the McDs..., it is also not my job to tell each and
every one of you about every opportunity that comes along. Busy Bee is
not some big secret that none of us knew about except me. It's been
there all along and anyone who wanted to spend the LD or overseas LD to
call can do so. I did. Want to see my phone bill?
But I heard about it from someone else who decided to not tell the
world, just the heavy trainies... and I rewarded that person modestly
for turning me on to it. I COULD have told the world at that point. But
why should I have?
What about all the english who now see some yank come in and buy up
THEIR stuff? Well, why was it moldering in TLG warehouses and why
haven't you english been patronising Busy Bee all along? We had this
same line of thinking back in the NZ spares incident... someone posted
something to the effect that he'd rather see the spares crushed than
have them go to a rich yank.
What a bunch of balderdash.
I plan to sell these for what the market will bear in order to cover my
cost and show an appropriate profit for the risk I took in securing
these.
You can buy them or not, as you choose. If I have misestimated demand, I
will eat them all and not care a bit. But if I haven't misestimated
demand, I will end up with 30 to keep, the GMLTC will end up with 24 at
a discount, and I'll have some money in my pocket too. And my wife will
be off my back a bit.
Like it or not... whether you think it is fair or not. None of that
matters.
Now if you think I did wrong that's fine. I don't actually care. But you
presumably thus then think that Tom Stangl did wrong to buy up all the
5571s from Zany Brainy? Or that Matt Chiles who always has new copies of
really rare stuff but gets a pretty premium for it is evil? Or that Mark
Harrison, who bought out an entire Norfolk Island toy store is somehow a
scalper? (4)
Hoppers cost less now than they did a few weeks ago. Enjoy it while it
lasts. It won't, they'll be back up to 60 again within a few weeks after
this mania dies down.
I'm gonna try some willpower and have this be my only response. Fat
chance, but I'm gonna try.
1- I made 2000 bucks clear profit on ICGE simply because I had the
foresight to own SFE for years and the foresight to say yes when SFE
spun rights off that could be converted to ICGE when it IPOed. WAY less
work than these hoppers. (2) Nothing to ship, no emails to write etc.
2 - But there's an analogy there... one could say that I some how had an
unfair advantage over the general public w.r.t this IPO because I had
knowledge that they did not have, and I had first mover advantage. But
safeguard has been talking about their intent to spin off ICGE for
months now... they spin off companies all the time. Is it my job to tell
everyone in the world they missed out on some information? No. It is not
my job to tell people about Busy Bee either. (3)
3 - I have anyway though. Paul said he got a number of calls from people
who called specifically because my eBay listings gave them a clue. And
some of them bought other stuff that may otherwise have languished. But
that's not being raised as a defense or justification, just a side note.
I need no defense, I need not justify myself.
4 - what a pejorative term. Scalper. But a scalper is just someone who
balances out supply and demand. Now, some scalpers who defeat store
allocation systems, trample children and otherwise act in non lawful non
rights affirming ways are bad people, but is the guy who spent time to
stand in line so he could get tickets, then resold them the day of the
show evil? I don't think so. No matter what the law says. (scalping
tickets at the site of the venue is illegal in some jurisdictions, I
have never understood why...)
--
Larry Pieniazek larryp@novera.com http://my.voyager.net/lar
- - - Web Application Integration! http://www.novera.com
fund Lugnet(tm): http://www.ebates.com/ ref: lar, 1/2 $$ to lugnet.
NOTE: Soon to be lpieniazek@tsisoft.com :-)
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: Blue Hopper Car Mania...
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| (...) Good for you, good for him. Good for everyone. Down with whining. (...) You shouldn't have, unless you wanted to. I've known about BB for a LONG time. I've never felt the urge to order from them even for some Castle stuff I might have wanted, (...) (25 years ago, 11-Oct-99, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
| | | Re: Blue Hopper Car Mania...
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| In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Larry Pieniazek writes: Hmmm - interesting. Some good points there about what actually happened with the blue hoppers. Unfortunately, although you've responded to points made by several other people, you haven't directly (...) (25 years ago, 11-Oct-99, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Blue Hopper Car Mania...
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| (...) Sell or auction? (...) That's a good idea. No problem with that. (...) Well Paul just did a standard profit margin on what he paid for them - since LEGO Denmark had them on the cheap because they wanted to clear them out - the end price was (...) (25 years ago, 8-Oct-99, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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