Keith you hit the true secret that everyone else ignored. the only way to buy things on E-bay is to wait until the last second to place your bid. Anything you do before then only runs up the price. I wanted an item once. I bid on it but someone else got real close. I tried to raise my max. bid and ended up bidding against myself! E-bay raised my bid with my other bid. The worst part is that no one else came in at the last minute so I just paid too much for the item.