Here is an issue involving me and some questions for everyone to discuss
Ive had various emails overnight, both for and against what happened.
Im happy to take constructive criticism from regulars here but I will point out that all the negative comments I received were from people I do not even know and have never dealt with.

The issue regards the sale of a Caesars Palace Silver Strike by me on ebay last night. If anyone cares to view the strike bb they will see this story broken up over various posts. I will try to deal with this in chronological order:

Back in May I agreed to sell a substantial collection of tokens and strikes for a vendor on a commission basis.
At that time, and until I took delivery of the consignment a few days before the convention, I only had scans of 7 of the 2000 items.
I advertised the collection in a number of ways between May and early August.
I created a web page showing those 7 items. I showed a flyer at the bottom of every one of my bb posts for that period, in addition to posts specifically about the sale, and in some cases specifically that Silver Strike and its 'partner' (This was a pair and I had one of each for sale).
Both the strikes featured in all my advertising, being the 2nd and 3rd items shown respectively below the HR Painted Tokens. My flyer also appeared as part of a two page color ad in the June club magazine, and also the middle two pages of the Convention brochure.
The 'partner' to this Strike sold at the convention for its full price. The Strike occupied 'center stage' in my convention display for the 3 days and many people looked it.
The sale was also promoted by my emailing the flyer/link to web page to all my strike & token mailing list customers.
ALL the items have always been available for fixed price purchase, first come first served just like any other sale.

Immediately I indicated I had these strikes available, someone volunteered me with info relating to how many were known to exist and who owned them. The last time this 'pair' was offered, it went to two different buyers. The buyer of the identical strike to mine was consequently the person who bought the 'partner' strike from me at the convention. The buyer of the other strike was in fact an existing customer of mine and I contacted him straight away to see if he was interested. He replied that financial circumstances had changed since his first purchase and he would have to decline.

After the convention, I added many more items to my website token page(s) although I advertised every single item here and by email first. Each time the same listings were shown, including the Caesars Strike, which never moved from near the top of the 1st page.
The strike has thus been available to buy for 5 months now with absolutely no interest despite that page being viewed some 4,000+ times now.

The vendor decided it was time to sell the strike come what may so I agreed to list it on ebay last night. I did so with a start price of 99c.
Almost immediately I received an offer for the strike for the full $2500 price I had been advertising it for. After consulting with the vendor, who wished me to accept the offer, and seeing the 'buyer' was the high bidder (with an overbid also) I ended the item early in his favor.

I then received complaints from several people saying they wanted to bid, at a higher price than $2500, despite the fact that those people, being club members and, by their own admission, regular board readers had had ample opportunity to purchase the strike outright since May, and not one person had ever expressed an interest nor made an offer.

Contrary to what others posted on the strike board, the buyer has no problem with me discussing this issue with numbers, I cleared it with him first.

The following factors were also taken into account when ending the item early:
The buyer is a regular customer who has made a number of purchases from this collection already but did not have the funds available previously for this item, and those facts were known to the vendor of the collection.
The price offered was the full Buy it Now price, and given the advertising factors I outlined above, there was good reason to suspect that price would not have been realised in auction (The last time this item sold on ebay, it only reached $1500)

IMO the whole thing is not much different to being beaten to a Buy It Now. Thats just my opinion at this moment.
That said, Its something Ive done very rarely, and would not have even contemplated had it not been a regular customer offering the full BIN price.

This morning I awake to 2 emails indicating that 'ethics violation' claims have been filed against me, and an email from ebay indicating a 'fraud' claim had been filed against me on this item and that I was suspended from making further listings. Sure enough I tried to list a single item just now and it was rejected. I am trying to establish what ebay rules I broke considering this a function they allow and fully provide for, right or wrong.

I am well aware there are plenty of people here that have ended auctions early for buyers, or that regularly ask other sellers to end items early for them. I am often asked to end items early but this is the FIRST time with a gaming related item that I have felt it was the right decision. I have not ended a gaming related item early in the past (other than when I screwed up with description or picture and then re-listed)

I am making it clear that I do not advocate ending items early as 'the thing to do in all cases', merely that I had a lot of factors to weigh up in this case and I made a decision based on all those factors.

Another factor that does not enamour me to some of the strike bb crowd is that on several occasions, they chose to delete my sales posts on their bb.

Your comments please..........

(Oh, for what its worth, Ive just been sent evidence that the main 'complainant' has recently done the same thing as me TWICE with no explanation at all. Go figure)