The One That Got Away (Missed Opportunity Thread)

Saw this 1991 Black Nishiki Alien ACX for sale on UK eBay, obviously under the radar as apparently hardly any-one knew about it.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Nishiki-alien ... AQ:GB:1123

I messaged seller to ask if I could bid and could he ship to USA, and he said Yes, so I put in an early bid to see if it would be accepted by eBay, which it was. Was planning to snipe this one with another large bid in the last few seconds of the auction, but MISSED OUT.......

.......WHY, you ask?

Because I failed to notice that the auction ending time was 15:37 GMT, not 15:37 PST.

Winning bid: £74.00.

Actual video of my reaction when I realized that I had missed my opportunity to bid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sr83UrbZb1Y

Same video translated into 147 different languages: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eal4fep7pK4

End result: Atomic Facepalm

_________________ :facepalm: :facepalm: :facepalm: :facepalm: :facepalm: :facepalm: :facepalm: :facepalm:
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___i :facepalm: :facepalm: :facepalm: _________i :facepalm: _____________________________i :facepalm:
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i :facepalm: ______i :facepalm: :facepalm: ________ :facepalm: _________i :facepalm: __________ :facepalm:
i :facepalm: :facepalm: _________i :facepalm: ________________________________i :facepalm:
___i :facepalm: :facepalm: :facepalm: _______________________________________i :facepalm:
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I even asked seller if he could forward my info to the winning bidder in case he wanted to make a profit. Seller's reply: "I did say to him that you would be very interested in it if he wanted to re-sell it, however he said that he too is a restorer/collector and he wants it for his collection and isn't interested in selling it at any price." which of course makes me think that someone here got it. On the bright side, it went to someone who cares about it and who will restore it, instead of going to someone who just wanted a low cost bike to thrash.

So, anyone else have a similar story? Feel free to commiserate here.

Easy one for me, and one I've mentioned a few times in other threads.

About 2 years ago I found a 1991 RM Altitude on CL in Colorado. It was so mint it looked like it must've been stored in a time capsule. It was a little pricey for me at the time though, especially right before Christmas with three kids, and the seller wouldn't budge on the price... somewhere around $1000 plus shipping as I recall.

Fast forward 2 or 3 months and the same bike shows up on ebay.com with a starting bid of $500. Same spec. Same mint frame. 7 day auction. On the sixth day, I get the flu. On day 7, in full-on fever mode, I eagerly watched the auction through the day. It ended around 11pm local time. One or two bids were in at about 10pm---but it was still in the low $500s. So I decided to rest my head for a little bit waiting to snipe. Didn't wake up until 8am the next day. :facepalm: Auction ended at about $550 USD. I haven't seen the bike again since, so I don't think anyone on here got it. It had a red aftermarket fork built to match the original, mostly XT and Ritchey parts. Red King headset. Sigh.

Re:

There's been a few, most recently a lovely Paul Donohue frame set in Max OR. I'm impatiently waiting for it to pop up in the readers bikes section. I'm also gutted I didn't copy the pics from the ebay listing before they disappeared.