Well this sucks. I had noticed some 400 watt Sylvania /DX mercury lamps in my ebay feed for months and thought nothing of it, and only today once the lamps had sold I realized that they were actually clearbanders… Am i the only one who has done something like this?

I was looking at bidding on an old street light in 90 watt SOX, decided against it. No pictures showed the fixture open, but there was clearly a lamp inside the bowl, with the base of it just showing between a gap in the refractors. Only after the auction ended I noticed the lamp in the fixture. Not a 90 watt SOX, but the unmistakable base of the Dewar jacket of the 140 watt SO/H!

Oh no     

The only time I missed out was when James told me about a rare MAT/V lamp on eBay. I looked at it, but decided not to bid there and then as the auction still had several days to run and I didn't want to push the price up. I thought I'd leave bidding till later on.

I then saw a couple of days later that the listing had disappeared. It couldn't have sold, as there were still a couple of days or so left on the auction, so I messaged the seller. Apparently, someone had called on him to personally pick up a different purchase, saw the lamp and said "Can I have that as well..?" so the guy took it off eBay (which he was entitled to do as there hadn't been any bids) and sold it to him there and then.

I have never made that mistake again; ALWAYS put in a minimum bid, even if you're prepared to pay more, you can always increase your bid later, or snipe it at the last moment. But a minimum bid will mean the seller can't take the listing down except in very specific circumstances, such as if it's been damaged.

A while back someone posted a listing of a 400w medium pressure MV lamp with ~20 left for something cheap like $20-30 each. I was on the fence when I first saw it and I wasn't home so I figured I'd decide to get it when I got home so I could go on my computer. Needless to say by the time I got home it was sold out as someone bought 6 of them at once.

The take away from this story is to decide immediately and hit the buy it now if you see something rare that you're considering getting, otherwise it might be gone by the time you decided.

Hmm with the minimum bid I never considered that. I usually don't bid at all until the last minute as I figured putting in a minimum bid attracts more people to bid which drives up the price. Maybe putting in a min bid at the start and sniping at the very end with your true bid amount might be better.

That's how I usually do it now. Minimum bid when I first see it to stop it being taken down, then snipe with maximum I'm prepared to pay at the end. Usually works, sometimes someone bids higher, but I wouldn't have paid the pricve the item sold for anyway so no loss.

While I've never missed a lamp out of sheer stupidity, I did miss a 600w HPS fixture when I was out trash picking. I only took the lamp and didn't think twice about taking the ballast box so I could run the lamp. I'm now left with yet another lamp that needs a ballast

HomeBrewLamps' 100w Westinghouse /X lamp showed up on my eBay feed for WEEKS and I never paid it any attention !! DOH !!!

Not particularly lamp-related this story, but around 5 and a half years ago the street lighting on my housing estate was getting replaced for Thorn R2L2 LED lanterns. I remember walking past the bucket van parked down the bottom of the footpath and not thinking too much of it, as around this time I was not massively into collecting lanterns, (but still had an interest.) I remember seeing one of the workers pushing down one of the two base-hinged columns (as this was on a footpath, and access via a bucket van was not a viable option.) After about 5 or 10 minutes later he was carrying both of the WRTL 2600 lanterns in his hands. Now only if this happened a year or two after, I probably would've went over there in a heartbeat and would've asked for them; so frustrating!!!

I just missed a NOS Westy 175w /W lamp !! I forgot about the auction and missed it ! It sold for $12.99 ! DOH !!!

Not necessarily a lamp but I missed out on a GE form 406 because I doubted what it was until it sold. Now I won't find another.

There's was a reptile bulb that was 60% off on Amazon and I missed it