What's the point of auction with reserved price?

Hi Some people want to price an item ( see what people are willing to pay ). Some people have another buyer that will meet that price. Some believe they have a valuable item. I rarely bid on a reserve item unless I really want it. Sellers often miss the fact that if they start the auction at a lower price, they get several people interested in the item. These people will often start bidding against each other. With a reserve, many will quite early, even if they are only a few dollors away from the reserve. They just get frustrated. Sellers also should not start there titles with things like "vintage" or "rare". The people that will most likely pay a good price already know how rare an item is and what they should bid for it. Those two adjectives rarely cause a bidder to bid higher and often even cause the knowledgeable bidder to miss seeing the auction ( not good for the seller ). Many have a lot to scan and wasted words, like these that are commonly used, just hide the actual item. It is hard enough to scan hunderds of items without all the noise. I doubt anyone bids on an iten because someone said it was rare. I recently picked up a Olivetti M20 for less then $130, including shipping because it was poorly advertised. If the seller had stated that it was a Z8000 machine he may have gotten better response. It just looked like any other PC of that age. As I recall, the title started with something like "vintage". I'd have not seen it if it wasn't for the fact that I was doing searches for Olivetti's. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Get FREE company branded e-mail accounts and business Web site from Microsoft Office Live http://clk.atdmt.com/MRT/go/mcrssaub0050001411mrt/direct/01/