Originally Posted by
tarwheel
Here's what often happens. A nice bike or frame with a cult following comes up for sale on eBay. Bike geeks start posting messages on forums about the sweet RB1/Merckx/Colnago/Pinarello or whatever for sale on eBay. Pretty soon there are a bunch of enthusiasts following the auction and trying to outbid each other.
I absolutely hate it when "well meaning" cyclists post messages about sweet frames on eBay. I've seen the prices on frames driven up to ridiculous prices that way.
I think that level of competitive bidding would happen anyway. I'm sure I'm not alone in this, but I have lots of saved searches on ebay.com, ebay.it, ebay.fr, etc. So I get a wave of emails every morning letting me know what new items have shown up on eBay in the past 24 hours that match my search terms. To a large extent, I've stopped bringing such items to the attention of collectors I know because they're doing the same thing I am.