Humble Uker Ramblings: CONFESSIONS of a MARTIN UKULELE COLLECTOR

The following is a story from my ukulele friend, Terry C., in Australia. He has shared videos, photos, and stories with me for the last couple of years. Now he has a beautiful collection of Martin M and K style ukuleles. This is a story of supply and demand. It is also a story of love of the humble ukulele and the strong tug of Ukulele Acquisition Syndrome. This story is fascinating. It shows the competitive and calculating mind of a shrewd businessman. Enjoy...

"Hey Jeff,
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Here’s an article you may or may not choose to publish on your Blog. I call it ‘Confessions Of A Martin Ukulele Collector’ I was new to Ebay in 2004 and had been starved of all Martin ukes for several years here in Australia (where there are none). Then this minty, vintage Martin 3K ukulele suddenly popped up on Ebay and I just had to have it. (Click on picture to see it larger.)

I knew what these things were worth as I’d been watching and lurking on Ebay for several months. But there was this one bidder called ‘__ckies*woo’ who was snapping up every high-end ukulele on Ebay. He/she had purchased all the vintage ukes for as long as I had been watching. I checked up his buying patterns and he was sniping everything with a BIG snipe bid. He was also into fine glassware and was snapping up all the top-end glass too. I calculated that he’d spent well over $100,000 on Ebay in the previous three months alone. A winning snipe bid from __ckies*woo was common.
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So how to beat this guy and get that 3K?
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There was no alternative but to outbid him. I asked myself how badly I wanted that uke. I wanted it more than was rational, so I decided on a nuclear bid of US$10,835 I knew this was a ridiculous amount of money but I did ask myself (before placing the bid) would I rather have $10,835 or that 3K and my answer was the 3K. So I went ahead. Not being familiar with how sniping worked in those days I placed a regular proxy bid early in the auction with my max and sat back and watched. I watched almost every minute of every day. Of course, I held the top spot all along because of Ebay’s automatic proxy bidding system. Every time there was a new bid or a new bidder I popped up to the top without fail. There were several nibblers who gave up. No other bidder ever held the winning bid except me.
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One thing that helped me is that I didn’t have any bid history at the time, so no-one could make any predictions about my bidding patterns. Then suddenly the bidding stalled. For the last three days the bidding remained at $3,556. I figured that the other bidders had apparently given up?
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My Ebay username was __mba147 and here’s the bidding one day before the auction ended back in 2005…

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At this stage __ckies*woo had not shown his hand but I knew he’d be sniping in the last few seconds of the auction as he had always done. With three seconds to go __ckies*woo placed a snipe $2,000 above the current bid but Ebay’s proxy system ensured I was the winner. It sure did hurt to be bumped up $2,000 in the last two seconds of the auction. Ouch!
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When the uke arrived in Australia I had to pay an additional $2,000 in import duties. At that time the Aussie dollar was very weak against the greenback so that 3K cost me the best part of $10,000.
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But almost five years later, I still have that uke and it has a very special place in my collection. I never did find out who __ckies*woo was even thought there were regular mentions of him on various Ukulele forums. My guess is that he was a millionaire or someone very much in that league. As a side note, a few weeks later __ckies*woo won a top-end Hollywood Uke for $7,500.

Terry C."

Thanks Terry for this story. I did change some names and crop some of the eBay usernames to keep the story a bit more anonymous. Have you come across __ackies*woo in any subsequent auctions? Terry also shared another fascinating historical Martin ukulele story in this post...

http://humbleuker.blogspot.com/2008/09/terry-c-plays-martin-5k.html

--Or you can see his story directly, here...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/uketeecee/sets/72157603816735835/