To explain sniping from my experience, I have done it a couple of times. One example was an item (pictured below) that I really wanted to get. It was a catalog from my High School Alma Mater that came with an invitation to graduation addressed to the cadets mother. I wanted to make sure I got it so that it could still have a connection to the school. I opened the bid with a proxy bid for $27.50. The open was $24(I will often go to **.50 because many will bid in even dollars) Someone else came in and bid, 3 times till he had outbid me. I had learned once before from an auction where I was bid against 6 times, by the same person, until outbid that If I bid again he would just bid again. What happened with the previous auction was that after I got outbid, another bidder came in . the other guy outbid again... Knowing that if I immediately upped my bid that he would probably just outbid me again I learned to hold back a little, just in case. I waited till about T-50 seconds and placed a new bid for $30.50. The other guy had bid $29 when he outbid me and I, finally, won at $30. There was an error in my final bid at - 50 sec and I got an error message. I frantically had to go through the screens and place a new bid. I ended up getting my bid in with about 12 seconds to spare.

I try to be fair and place normal proxy bids and will often just let an item go when I am outbid. However if it is something that I feel is important enough I will protect myself by holding back a little to allow me this option to avoid a potentially irrational bidding war. Incidentally the book was a good buy. It has a lot of great information about the building of the new school, where I went 62 years later, the schools, historical automobile corps and their trip to Washington DC and a picture of the Corps with President Taft.