Pete,

Aha, so that's it!

In the case of this seller, he discovered his mistake during the course of the auction, and emailed the bidders expressing his desire to end the auction and not sell the chip, which was his right.

Because he failed to follow the specific technique of canceling the bids before ending the auction, he exposed himself to a valid contract with Jim. To me, it's important to differentiate the difference between the mistake of not knowing the value of what he had, and the mistake of not ending the auction properly.

My question to Jim was "Now, do you really want to take a $400.00 chip from him for $100+, because the poor guy was ignorant and misinformed?", and I meant ignorant and misinformed about the proper procedure to end an auction early when you no longer wish to sell, not his ingnorance about the value of the chip. I should have made that more clear, I guess.

In the case of the Ivories I bought, the seller made a mistake all right, but the seller NEVER expressed a desire to end the auction. He was delighted with the price he got, and probably still feels that way. I got a good deal, and have nothing to be ashamed of.

However, if my seller had emailed me and said "I just now realized that I made a mistake and misspelled Ivory, and I'm obviously not getting the exposure I should be, so I am going to cancel all bids, end the auction, and start over", he would have been well within his rights to do so. If he had then fumbled the process, and neglected to cancel my bid before ending the auction, there is NO WAY I would have held his feet to the fire, claiming "we have a valid contract!"

Do you see the difference between the two situations?