Is it possible to see when an item was first listed?

[scuzzball]

For future buying and selling purposes I wonder if it's possible to see this information or if Ebay would prefer an item's original listing date/time to not be known?

[davidstarcher]

Start time is visible to the seller in the listing just under the listing info header but is invisible to the buyer. To the best of my knowledge there is no setting to change this. Some listing also have just under the about this item heading a Last updated notice which includes the date and time and a link to View all revisions which gives a list of revisions since it was originally listed which can give you an indication of how long it's been listed. 

[woodland_gnome]

It's possible to find the starting date of a fixed-price listing (all are "Good 'til Cancelled and keep autorenewing every month until ended by the seller or a sale) but takes some doing. What you need to do is do a search that will include the listing you are concerned with and that also will have a few dozen other results with titles fairly easily distinguishable from your target listing. Then sort by "Time: Newly listed" and go down the list from newest to oldest, keeping track of each time you go back from January of one year to December of the past year (the year is not displayed, only the month and day, which is why you have to do this to pin down the year) until you find your target listing with the month and day displayed (if it's not, click on the box to the right of the Sort box at top right, choose Customize, check the "Time remaining" box and save the changes).

[janet9988]

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@scuzzball wrote:

For future buying and selling purposes I wonder if it's possible to see this information or if Ebay would prefer an item's original listing date/time to not be known?

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Any seller could have taken the listing off the market and then listed the item a day later....so it is impossible to see when the original listing was FIRST listed.

[mudshark61369]

@scuzzball,

I do not know if this will still work or not but. If you click on  the Advanced button to the right of the Main search button at the top of most ebay pages, You may be able to get a listing's history.  If the item is a Buy it Now listing with multiples available,

On the page that opens on the left there is a short menu. Select By Seller.

The page will reset and you will see a place to enter a seller's username without the number in ( ) to the right of it. Once you have filled that in the check box next to Show only items from; will have a check in it.

Scroll back up the page and type in or copy and paste the item title as it appears on the listing. Below that use the drop down menu to select the main category the item was listed in.

Then check the Completed listings box and then Search.

On the results page set the Sort box on the right just above the first listing to Sort:  [Ended Recently]  Items from the seller that did not sell will have a price in Black, sold item prices are green. If a listing is in its first 30 day cycle it will not show on the results page.

If the item is a Buy it Now listing with multiples available, check the Sold listings box. Then you can get an idea of how many have sold in the last 90 days.