Total number of auctions won: 81
Number of auctions won for 1¢: 53
Total cost of all auctions: $12.74
Total value of cards won: $411.00
Now, I missed a nice tidy 80 cards because I managed to not get outbid on some late 35¢ minimum cards, but was able to tack on that last card as a separate PayPal remit while keeping the shipping at the 25¢/card "combined" rate. All told, the shipping on this came out to $23.25, so the "total total" spent was $35.99 (not shabby for two weeks worth of entertainments, eh?). That's less than 9% of the "retail value", putting this little eBay venture well under my "target" of 1/7th of retail (it ended up being something like 1/11th of retail) ... go me!
On other, similar, fronts ... have I mentioned how much I HATE bidding bots on eBay? Oh, I have? Another vendor I've bought stuff from has likewise been starting a lot of stuff at 1¢, some of which are blocks of common/uncommon cards from various sets. Daughter #1 has been interested in having some Yu-Gi-Oh cards, and I thought that this might be a good way to pull in a stack or two of those for her. Well ... it seems that there are a LOT of card shops that think this vendor is the damned Rock Candy Mountain as every auction that I've been watching has come right up to the last minute and then been blasted by bids. I don't think that there has been a single one of those auctions over the past two days that was won by somebdoy actually there! Yeah, a "real bidder" might be in the lead up to 50 seconds or so (like I just was) only to have the bots sweep in. It's only funny when 2-3 bots are set for the same auction, and the totat shoots WAY up in no time at all, with the lead changing hands every couple of seconds as the bots go at each other. Damn, I wish eBay would put a block on that ... it really ruins the fun for the live bidders.