Chapter 76.1
Editor: Jodi
After having experienced the excitement and shock of discovering the premium yellow jadeite from the last time, Bai Jing’s emotions settled down quickly.
He walked forward while casually bidding on a few coded items just above the reserve price, all the while contemplating the price of this rough stone.
This dark ebony skin rough stone, which showed black fog after having been polished, evidently didn’t attract many bidders, as black fog was an inferior fog layer with the most variables, what’s more the characteristics of dark ebony skin rough stones were such that nine out of ten bets would be collapse in bets.
So now he needed to determine a number that would exceed the eight electronic bids inside the bidding box, and a number which wouldn’t rouse the seller’s suspicion at that.
Since the seller didn’t choose to place this rough stone in the open bidding area but rather polished it until a window was revealed, it indicated that he held some expectations for this rough stone.
So if the bid price was too high, the seller would definitely block the bid!
And this was something he absolutely didn’t want to see.
He remembered what Gu Yuanzhao had said: people who came to the Sotho Star Planet’s Emporium were either here for fame or profit.
Clearly, those betting on this rough stone were here for profit, hoping it would yield high-quality jadeite, however because they knew that the odds were slim, they wouldn’t invest too much.
After all, no one wanted to gamble on a collapse in bet rough stone— the wealthy definitely wouldn’t engage in an unprofitable venture.
The reserve price for A4100 was 1.5 million starcoins, a reserve price which was already quite high.
Bai Jing glanced at the number ‘8’ displayed on the bidding box and was sure that at least half of the bids inside wouldn’t exceed 2 million. As for the rest—
To better estimate the price, Bai Jing found a similar performing rough stone, labeled A4187.
This rough stone also showed a black fog layer, was similar in size, and had a comparable reserve price.
He observed its skin’s performance carefully. After shining a light through the fog layer, it revealed a deeper green with a bit of gray. In terms of ‘density and brightness,’ it was much better than the previous rough stone.
However, if it were this rough stone, even a bid of 3 million would seem like a loss.
As the base below the black fog layer was mostly impure, with low transparency and a predominantly gray color, offering no advantages in both variety or color.
For A4187, Bai Jing estimated the jadeite inside to be at most jadeite of the oily green variety, one that weighed about twenty kilograms and was worth around 2 million, a number which was still quite a ways away from 3 million.
Since the performance of A4100 under strong light was worse than A4187, then did this mean that the former’s bid amount would be lower?
Previously, Bai Jing thought it would take at least 8 million starcoins, or ideally 10.3 million to secure the rough stone.
However after analyzing things, he believed that 5 million starcoins would suffice to win this rough stone, and that a more conservative estimate would be no more than 3.5 million.
So he finally settled on a bid of 4.99 million.
What Bai Jing didn’t know was that it was this bid that successfully saved him from a potential disaster.
By the evening before the bids were opened, the highest bid for A4100 in the secret bidding area was 4.99 million, with the second highest at 2.95 million, a difference of over 2 million.
And the seller’s estimated price was 3 million starcoins.
When the middle-aged man saw this price, he was a bit surprised.
Because placing this rough stone in the open bidding area wouldn’t have fetched more than 1 million, which was why he had taken the risk of polishing it and placing it in the secret bidding area, hoping for a double return.
Unexpectedly, someone bid nearly 5 million starcoins, more than tripling the estimate, exceeding his expected price by 60%!
Could it be that this rough stone had something he hadn’t noticed?
Although he knew this was unlikely, the shrewd middle-aged man still reviewed the previous pictures and videos with his family overnight then consulted a seasoned Stone Solver.
However, the advice he received was to take the money while it was good.
Because it might be that a wealthy individual was trying their luck, or that someone might have entered the wrong bid amount.
The seller thought it over and realized that this was indeed possible.
Such situations were common in the Emporium’s history.
With tens of thousands of rough stones, it was easy to get confused, especially in the last ten minutes before the bids closed, as many people hurried to change their bids, often pressing the wrong amounts.
Someone had even mistakenly added an extra zero in their rush and only realized the error the next day when the bids were opened.
Then his bidding of 150 million instead of 15 million resulted in him escaping the bid, then he lost his 1 million starcoins deposit, got blacklisted by the event organizers permanently, and became a laughingstock.
The middle-aged man calculated the pros and cons in his mind quickly.
The price of raw stones at the Sotho Star Planet’s Emporium was significantly higher than outside, so missing this opportunity might mean never getting such a high price again.
Hence after much hesitation, he finally decided to heed the advice of those around him and gave up on bid blocking.
If Bai Jing had added another two to three million to his 4.99 million bid, the outcome would have been entirely different.
However, when it came time for the rough stone to be unraveled, the middle-aged man was so devastated that he trashed his room and locked himself in for three days.
If he had known that it was Gu Yun’s bid, he would have blocked it immediately!!
That was top-grade jadeite, top-grade jadeite—!
That auction money would have lasted several lifetimes!
**
Bid blocking is actually illegal in certain auction houses and auction sites. You set a starting bid, a minimum acceptable bid, and then you just have to wait and see what happens.
I mind less if the seller wants to recall their item before the end of the auction if they’ve noticed that the activity isn’t looking promising, but it does still annoy me when sellers do this. Just set your minimum acceptable bid properly or sell it for a fixed price.
Ebay-style bidding is already the most I’m willing to put up with and it still annoys me because it makes buying something into an inherently heated and emotional thing when you’re bidding against someone for it. Leads you to overspend because you’re emotionally invested into it.