Last minute bidding is a good idea, but...

[countryman]

...not when the computer craps out in the very moment :-(
Northern phones do not seem to like me. It would have displayed nicely with my new Western 302 :-(
I was prepared to bid €37,37 - of course I do not know what the successful bidder had typed in.

That phone looked quite original to me except for the french dial. Were Northern phones ever officialy used in France? I don't think francophonic Canada used a dial layout different from the rest of North America?
However, not my phone.

[tubaman]

That was (possibly) bad luck. 

[FABphones]

....Were Northern phones ever officialy used in France?....

Officially back in the day, not that I am aware of, but Galions do turn up for sale on occasion.

If I had to guess I would say the original dial failed and was replaced with another more readily available. Finding the correct dial for these in the EU can be quite difficult.

Unless I already had the correct dial, or was willing to import one from outside the EU, I would wait.
A correct one will come along eventually. 

[twocvbloke]

That's why I use myibidder when there's something I want to bid on, as I have a habit of forgetting I was going to bid on something, and that site does the bidding for me, so long as I remember to set it...

[countryman]

That's interesting, as it has a web based version.
I had set my local version of BOM (bid-o-matic), but what did it help with a frozen computer...

[twocvbloke]

Yep, everything is done from their end, so less chance of losing an item due to a computer failing...

It's not 100% perfect, but it works for the most part, the only times it's really failed me is when the clocks change from summer to normal time and vice-versa, due to their servers being in a different time zone...

[loblolly986]

I personally use the Gixen sniping service. They offer a very good free service (albeit newly limited to four winning snipes a month), and for a rather cheap annual or bi-annual (or other) cost you can get Gixen Mirror service which submits your bid twice from separate servers (to protect against server or network issues not caused by eBay; rare but they do happen) and offers more user configurability. It's entirely server-based so no dependence on your computer being on and a couple of years ago they were granted access by eBay to use the eBay API directly so it's even more reliable than before.

I used to manually snipe auctions regularly but these days normally just let the sniping service do it for me; I've missed out on my share of auctions from forgetting to tune in at the end or my bid not being entered or registered in time.

[rdelius]

The typical french dial will not fit in a US telephone but a ATEA from Belgium will fit

[Jack Ryan]

Northern phones do not seem to like me.

Just as a matter of interest, it is a North (North Electric) H6 Galion - not a Northern (Northern Electric).

Jack

[countryman]

Thanks for pointing that out - indeed I had not fully researched this. I'll be better prepared now when the next opportunity comes.

[countryman]

Bid-O-Matic has issues logging into eBay for a while now. There's no update to help with that - seems like eBay wants to rule out automated last minute bidding and has made provisions to prevent automated logins.
Before registering there, is myibidder still working or is it also affected by eBay's new login techniques?

[twocvbloke]

I haven't used myibidder for a while now so not too sure, only way to see is try it out on something that'll sell low-value to make sure it does...

[Dan/Panther]

I use EZ Sniper.
Cheap and very reliable.

D/P

[19and41]

I'll customarily use Gixen on special interest items I can't get on buy it now.   I usually enter my max and the item number and snipe it without casting an initial bid.

[Doug Rose]

I have never used a sniping service. Just don't trust it with my info. If I can't BIN, I bid what I feel comfortable bidding.

Sometimes you bite the bear, sometimes the bear bites you....Doug