Rich; I didn't say that there are no shill bidders on ebay. I agree ... shill bidders are all you say they are and more.

My entire point is that if a chip that I was interested in appeared on ebay ... and if I was willing to pay a certain price for it ... whether it was $5 or $100 ... I would bid my price and hope that I won, whether a shill was involved or not.

Let's put it another way ... outside the realm of ebay. You're at the annual chip show in Las Vegas and a dealer has a beautiful crest & seal chip that you would be willing to purchase at $400 and you bought it and found out later that the dealer was offered $300 and $350 for the chip before you arrived at his table. Do you post on thechipboard that you didn't get a bargain that you were looking for ... or are you happy to add it to your collection? I think the latter. We've ALL paid too much for some of our chips at one time or another.