What's the point of auction with reserved price?

Experience. Knowing the market. Once a seller gets to know the usual bunch of buyers, more things become apparent thru the talk in the gravevine. The dealers have ears. If an inexperience buyer were to first search for "Computer", think of all the hits then. Or even "Apple" (popular amongst the newer collectors). It is obvious in these cases that some of those useless words start to become useful. Beginners just getting into a field tend not to look for specific items, but do blanket searches. This does not work well. Starting bids that are too high attract very few bids, because buyers in general want a bargain (especially the dealers). This is true for the live auction scene as well. Auctioneers will always start out high, but nearly always quickly dip down to something far below market value. They know that they can not expect much action if the starting bid is true market value. Ebay has no easy way to lower starting bid places like this, so it only makes sense to start reasonably low. There are, of course, sellers that always start very high, and expect to have many lots that do not sell. This takes nerves of steel, as the income stream tends to be very erratic. It works well if the seller can afford to have many bad weeks. There are plenty of big fish that come along that can take the hook. -- Will