In a private auction, nothing is disclosed about the bidders except bid amounts and number of bidders. In a normal auction, even if eBay chooses to mask the names because of the value of the item, considerable info is available about each bidder's prior bid history. Take a look at a closed auction some time. eBay doesn't make it very clear that yhou can do this, but you can.

My comment about this Landmark auction being conducted as "private" was partly because this seller ( who is unknown to me) has two negatives on eBay in the past year. It's possible both could be easily explained, but they are not. In the interest of full disclosure, I have a negative in my history as well; several years ago and from one of 1700+ individuals I've dealt with.