eBay bidding technique (was Re: bogus auction for Altair system on eBay)

All this whining about how other people bid on ebay makes me laugh. This idea that someone who bids against you must be part of a conspiracy because they didn't win the item from you is just sour grapes talking because you didn't get it "cheap". Like it or not ebay has a tendency to eliminate market inefficiencies by matching supply and demand. In "the old days", the supply was variable and often the seller had no idea how much things were actually worth to buyers because there was hardly any chance of them matching their meager supply with the geographically dispersed demand. Now a local supply can reach a global demand, with the end result being that some items are bid up higher than they would be if you were buying it form a dufus who didn't know how badly you wanted it. On the other hand, more supply reaches the market these days because even for things where the seller has no clue what it is, they say to themselves "hey, I'll throw it on ebay, maybe someone will want it and I won't have to haul it to the dump". So instead of being consigned to the scrap heap or the dump, that heavy ASR-33 ends up on ebay and someone buys it and pays freight shipping for it. Since "everyone" wants an ASR-33 for their old computer, it will command a pretty price on e-bay. Likewise for something like an ADM-3/ADM-3A, an Altair, or whatever. More obscure items can still be had for cheap, like the Megatek CAD terminal I bought from Patrick for $0.99 :-) even though the freight shipping is going to cost me about $250-275, or the PDP-11/03 + 2 RL01s + VT-100 + LA-120 + 25 disk packs that I got for $250 for local pickup in Reno. I've engaged in all sorts of ebay bidding practices, based on my whim, feeling, intuition and sometimes strategy. Never did I bid more than I was willing to pay, never have I retracted a bid, occasionally an item was not exactly as described and I withheld feedback until working it out with the seller. On those couple of occasions, the seller has worked with me in a reasonable fashion to resolve the situation to my satisfaction. If you don't like the fact that other people on ebay can bid against you and "raise the price", then don't bid more than your initial bid or better yet don't bid at all if its just going to make your blood boil and give you a coronary. Yes, there are idiots in the world and some of them bid on ebay. Whoop-dee-fuckin'-doo. Get over it, its just the way the world is. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: <http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/book/> Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty <http://pilgrimage.scene.org>