Re: The world is crazy !!!!!!! :-) Message #10 Posted by Vassilis Prevelakis on 9 Feb 2006, 7:22 p.m., in response to message #7 by Thomas Okken
Thomas Okken wrote:
> I think kahunajumpbig just put in a ridiculously large bid
> initially, and then some other bidder had to try many times before
> he could finally get the high bid. The unsuccessful bids don't
> show up in the bid history, but each time kahunajumpbig's bid is
> automatically increased (up to his limit) to stay ahead *does*
> show up.
No this is not how eBay works. Lets look at the bidding:
starting bid was $10
on Feb 5 gwbarbosa bids for $20, the "Current bid" is $10
on Feb 6 seantokuji bids $300, the "Current Bid" is changed to $21
on Feb-8 drsanfranscisco bids $38.89, the "Current bid" is changed to something close to $40 (essentially eBay uses money from seantokuji's max. bid to outbid drsanfranscisco on seantokuji's behalf)
from that moment onwards kahunajumpbig starts bidding up.
Each bid is shown in the bid history and each time the "Current bid" is updated to be a little bit more than kahunajumpbig's bid since it was less than the $300 bid placed by seantokuji.
Finally kahunajumpbig places a bid greater than $300 (prob. smth like $320) and the "Current bid" is changed to $305 with highest bidder kahunajumpbig.
So the bids shown are the actual bids placed by the bidders excpet the last one ($305) which is the lowest possible to outbid seantokuji 's bid. At this stage the bid increments are $5, so
we know that kahunajumpbig's bid is >= 305. If the "Current bid" was lower than $305, (e.g. $301) than we would *know* that kahunajumpbig's bid was EQUAL to $301. This is the only case where you can tell the true amount of the highest bid.
My guess is that seantokuji is feeling very releaved at the moment. It may be that he simply put a very high bid to be sure to win without really expecting the price to go *that* high. If kahunajumpbig gave up at $289, then seantokuji would be in for a very bad surprise the next time he/she checked the bidding.
This happened to a friend who bid $100 for the manual of the HP-IL interface for the HP-71B. Someone went as high as $95 and gave up,
so my friend had to shell out $100 (+ pp) for a $10 manual.
Folks, never put a very high bid well in advance. Infact never put a bid higher than what you can pay. Sooner or later you *will* regret it.
**vp
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