"I guess that the bidder that retracted didn't realize they didn't really want to bid on this until they upped the bid with a half hour to go and then retracted it with ten minutes to go. Why else would the bid revert to $36.00?"

Brian: I would suspect that someone may have contacted Mr. Soze with an offer to buy the chip for less money than he had bid. Probably why he withdrew his bids in BOTH auctions by two different sellers.