Just won a great set of Handbells on eBay - 3 octaves, 37 bells

[Rooster_Ties]

As some of you might remember, my wife and I started a handbell choir at our church, which I conduct/direct/whatever-you-call-it. (And we've played some crazy music on handbells too, more on that later.)

For about two years we've been borrowing bells and rehearsal space from another wonderful church a few miles away (a church of an entirely different denomination too, I might add -- we're Unitarian Universalist, and the church with the bells is Methodist).

Anyway, this week I managed to WIN a 3-octave set of used handbells on eBay for $3000 less than the cost of brand new bells. (Brand New = $8700, but we got 'em used for about $5700 -- Yeah!!!). They're coming from a Church of the Nazarene in Indiana, and were purchased new in 1978, and look to be in great condition.

We're exploring payment options with the other church, and realizing that a cashier's check might be easier all the way around for everyone -- thus saving Paypal fees too. Can anyone confirm that the Paypal fees on a $5700 transaction would be about 2.5%?? (Or about $144.) The two churches are planning to split this savings.

The other church has a Paypal account of the variety that they can only withdraw $500 per month from their balance (they only use it to pay for things, though they have received some funds once or twice, only small amounts, much smaller than a transaction like this). Looking at the Paypal site, specifically here...

https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr?cm...pricing-outside

It looks like the fee on $5,700 would fit in the range where it would cost 2.5% (plus $0.30). And they would have to go to the trouble of upgrading their status with Paypal too, it looks. (ALSO, would the other church ALSO be required to pay a one-time fee to do this account upgrade?? - and what would that fee be (if any), that we would be saving them?? I'm not seeing any fee for this, but you have to actually apply to expose the whole process, it would appear.)

Regardless, is 2.5% the right figure?? I'm about 98% sure this is right, but I've never accepted any money from Paypal before -- I've only paid for things with it. And I want to be sure about the total savings of avoiding Paypal. Thanks!!!

Edited December 21, 2007 by Rooster_Ties

[Rooster_Ties]

From the eBay action we won (these are the actual bells)...

Edited December 20, 2007 by Rooster_Ties

[Big Al]

I just drooled on my keyboard! That's deal of the century right there! And they look beautiful, too; I hope they sound as beautiful as they look!

You did get the white-handled bells as well, right?

[Rooster_Ties]

You did get the white-handled bells as well, right?

Wait, what??

FYI, the jazz concert series I started here in Kansas City (called "Jazz & Beyond"), was and is an ongoing fundraiser for the bell choir. We've had 7 concerts since last January ('07), and plan to have another 6 or 7 more in '08. We've raised a little over $2,200 via the concerts alone, and (perhaps even more importantly), we've paid the jazz musicians (all local) in excess of $3,500. (Close to $500 per concert, average -- which is more than the clubs here pay.)

The musicians get 2/3rds of the door (at $10 per ticket), and we get the other 1/3rd, plus any proceeds from donations for beer, wine, and soda sales before the concert, and during intermission. On average, the band gets almost 60% of the total revenue for the night, and the bell choir gets about 40%.

(AND, by doing this as a church function, the bands don't have to pay any rental fees for the space (which would otherwise run over $500 alone for a straight rental, actually I think more like $800 if I remember right). Win/Win for everybody!!

Gotta do something to keep them musicians off the street.

Edited December 20, 2007 by Rooster_Ties

[AndrewHill]

To be honest, I had no clue bells went for that much. I've sold cars for less than that!

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

They look beautiful! Good luck with this.

MG

[Free For All]

Sounds like a copper clapper caper.......

[Tim McG]

I love the sound of hand bells...especially around Christmas time.

Hope they work out for you

[Jim Alfredson]

The Paypal fee only applies to the seller, not the buyer. If the seller is trying to get you to pay any Paypal fees, that is a violation of ebay rules. If it is easier to via Paypal, then do so. If not, cashier's check is the way to go.

[mikeweil]

When are you going to practice "Giant Steps" on dem bells?

[Jazzmoose]

[Rooster_Ties]

When are you going to practice "Giant Steps" on dem bells?

I've got the arrangement all done (have for over a year), but all the accidentals were notationally WAY confusing to people in the group (which was, at the time, barely one year old). Time to dig it out again, and see how they do with it now.

Yes, that Giant Steps, on handbells!! (Slowed to 1/4 the speed of the original.)

Edited December 21, 2007 by Rooster_Ties

[Rooster_Ties]

The Paypal fee only applies to the seller, not the buyer. If the seller is trying to get you to pay any Paypal fees, that is a violation of ebay rules. If it is easier to via Paypal, then do so. If not, cashier's check is the way to go.

Yes, aware that Paypal charges only apply to the seller.

Both the seller and buyer want to avoid Paypal (for various reasons), and we're wanting and willing to split the savings as a result of doing so. Thus my trying to figure (somewhat exactly) what the savings would be by not using Paypal on such a large transaction. The ministers of the two churches have talked, and we're all confident that nobody's trying to scam nobody here. And the fees are not just small change on a nearly $6K transaction like this one.

[Rooster_Ties]

Good story alert!!! (Post #14)

I forgot the tell the best part of how I won these bells. You long-time eBay buyers will appreciate this one.

The morning of the auction (5 hours before it closed), I go to set my Auction Snipe "robot" (one that's external to eBay - the ONLY way to go!!). I ran my numbers again, taking into account the cost of having them refurbished, if necessary (about $1200 to $1600). Also, there's the "lost" discount on accessories we would miss out on by NOT having bought new bells. (This is NOT to be overlooked -- the lost "savings" on buying new tables, pads, table covers, mallets, and all the other stuff you need to really play bells to the fullest -- is nearly $500. See, they offer a 20% discount on all that "accessory" stuff when you buy NEW bells -- as damn well they ought to, if you're paying nearly 10 Grand for new bells themselves.)

ANYWAY, I had myself convinced I wouldn't bid more than $5100 on the bells (worth $8700 brand new). Then a couple hours later I bumped it up to $5300, and again to $5450 about an hour before the end. That last price was a good $250 more than I really wanted to spend, but I also really DIDN'T want to miss out on this deal by a such a trivially small amount. (And remember, I'm using an Auction Sniper, so I'm not really setting my bid within the eBay system. I damn well didn't want anybody to have the chance to outbid me.)

Well, 20 minutes before the auction closes I "chicken out" of leaving it at $5450, so I bump my snipe bid up one final time to $5557 (Just a random number well over $5.5K, just for luck). NOTE: At the time I did this, the bidding was still down around $4500 (a good $1000 less than what I wildly guessed the bidding would hopefully end at).

So, two minutes before the end, somebody manually snipes the auction for $5502, and they're winning the auction all the way until the last 6 or 7 seconds -- when my auto-snipe swoops in and outbids them BY BARELY $55 MORE. Remember, my $5557 bid was just a number I pulled out of my ass 20 minutes before, back when the bidding was still down around $4500.

I won this damn thing by $50.

Edited December 21, 2007 by Rooster_Ties

[Rooster_Ties]

BUT WAIT, IT GETS EVEN BETTER...

Of course, if I HADN'T used the auto-sniper to bid at the very last second (meaning if I HAD used the regular eBay system to manually place my very same $5557 bid, with let's say a minute to go) -- that last bidder would have had a good two minutes to outbid me again, and he would have easily won, I'm sure of it!!!

ANY ATTEMPT TO OUTBID ME, EVEN BY $10 OR LESS, AND I WOULD HAVE LOST.

If I had autobid through eBay (even a manual snipe in the last 3 minutes), my ebay autobid would have jumped $50 above the 2nd to last bid to $5552.52, and my absolute TOP was $5557. That's a difference of less than $5!!!!

Look for yourself. Here are the last four bids...

Bidder Bid Amount Bid Time

Rooster( 117) US $5,557.00 Dec-18-07 11:36:09 PST

r********a( 11) US $5,502.52 Dec-18-07 11:34:05 PST

r********e( 0 ) US $5,000.00 Dec-18-07 11:33:20 PST

r********a( 11) US $4,550.00 Dec-18-07 11:32:10 PST (a little before this is about when I set my snipe to $5557)

Holy crap, when I first started the post above (and for all of the last two days), I thought my margin of error was about $50, which is less than 1% of the total transaction price.

But, in fact, it was less than 1/10th of 1% -- more like $5. $4.48 to be exact. If the other guy had bid again, even as little as $5 more ($5 more than what my bid would have looked like to him), he would have won. As little as $5!! (And margins of less than $1 do count at the very top, at the very end of an auction.)

Now I *REALLY* can't believe it.

Look for yourself (click)

Isn't that right??

My margin of error was $5. Holy fucking shit.

Edited December 21, 2007 by Rooster_Ties

[Jazzmoose]

That's good, but as far as I'm concerned, there's no such thing as a manual snipe with two minutes to go; if it ain't in the last ten seconds, it ain't a snipe!

[Big Al]

All's I know is my church's choir director was really upset about something last night.....

[sidewinder]

Any advances on $5?