Peter; My point was that if I wanted to pay retail by submitting my top bid, I would not be bidding on Ebay. Ebay is a place where folks like to play around and get a bargain. Nobody like to pay top dollar for anything .... that's why auctions are very popular. I may be tempted to bid more than what I had originally intended to spend on a particular auction lot.... whether the auction lot was on ebay or at the club's live convention auction.

My whole point is that Ebay prevents me from submitting a reconsidered bid after the seconds clock winds down ... where a live auction allows me to top the previous bid before the auctioneer's hammer goes down and has nothing to do with "understanding" how proxy bids are made.

On many, many, occassions, multiple bids are made at live auctions after it would have appeared that the bidding had concluded. That's what Ebay is missing.... to the detriment of the seller. So snipe away. I'm not critical of your method of bidding. You are playing by the rules that Ebay sets and there is nothing wrong with that. I've done the same thing. But when you say, bid the maximum of what you want to pay .... I say that if everyone did that up front, there would be no end-game sniping.