Sh!t I've Lost on Ebay Pt.1

At a certain point, we all get outbid in life. Whether it's for a cab, a house, or a baby up for adoption. Or maybe a kidney? A Picasso? One of my first memories of being outbid was for a kickball game on the playground: we missed out on a chance to get a real baller when we were picking teams, and this kid was able to kick like a mule even before the steroid era. Needless to say, once the game began we were thrashed like General Custer at his Last Stand. That ugly taste has continued to linger in my mouth.

To play along with this theme of unfairness, I'll be periodically posting some things I've been outbid on through ebay. Mostly to vent, but also to show you readers (or reader, if there's only one of you that actually come here) some of the useless drivel I have tended to want over the years. Some of them are actually collectible enough to make sense and do have value, but others are as useful as the image of God on burnt toast. But then again, at least you can always eat the toast.

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A few weeks ago, I lost out on an authentic 1951 photo of Sugar Ray Robinson and Jake Lamotta from their sixth and final meeting (when prize fighters actually fought each other), also known as the "St. Valentine's Massacre" due to the severe, bloody beatdown Robinson gave Lamotta on Valentine's Day (depicted in Scorsese's Raging Bull). 

I'm a bit of a boxing freak, and especially enjoy the historical aspects of the sport: from the literature, the written accounts, and actual film footage. Black and white footage for this particular fight exists, and it's a real beauty: Robinson was an offensive juggernaut who could triple his hooks and smash a right to the head or the body in fluid combinations, while moving around like a tap dancer. And the scary part was Lamotta could take these shots. He had a big head like Newt Gingrich, and his skull was a like melon.

Vintage photos of these two fighting each other are generally scarce and quite in demand, and can fetch a pretty penny depending on the fight, the picture sequence, and its overall condition. The bid started at $9.99 which was nice, so it was definitely worth it to roll the dice. So I placed my bid which wasn't too high, hoped for the best, and continued to watch the auction from afar. If I won, cool. If I lost, at least I didn't overpay for it and left myself some good bourbon money. Either way you'd look at it, I would win-which is the best way to go in a stupid, minor auction on ebay.

So it ended up like this:

Well, I was somewhat expecting to be outbid, but not like this and certainly not by this amount. But on ebay, all it takes is for two to tango for the price to skyrocket, so... although I really did covet the photo, maybe better luck next time? I just allocated my resources into something else.

Always have a Plan B.

Until the next outbid auction, cheerio.