Tips for Buying Books on eBay

eBay, which has a virtual monopoly on online auctions, undoubtedly offers opportunities to purchase rare and expensive bird books at very favorable prices. Simply searching in the Books category for "birds" typically yields more than 10 pages of results. Anyone who follows the postings and sorts through all of the junk may eventually find some desirable books. In addition, sellers of 19th Century bird prints often post scans, which you can save to your hard drive.

Although I have yet to buy a bird book on eBay, I have sold a few, and I have purchased various items, including a Casio watch, a Linhof tripod and panhead, several classical CDs, components for my home alarm system, and computer hardware and software. I have been pleased with the outcomes of all of the transactions and in each case have given the other party positive feedback.

Based upon my own experiences, I highly recommend that anyone shopping on eBay use a "sniping" service to place bids. A sniping service will place your bid automatically within seconds of the close of the auction, preventing other bidders from responding. I have had very favorable experiences with PhantomBidder.com, which places bids as late as 3 seconds before the close of an auction. The first five successful bids are free, after which each winning bid costs 30 cents. There is no charge for unsuccessful bids.