Hi John, are you sure this wasn't shill bidding?

Seller's friends artificially raising the price and only retracting their final bids leaving you as the winner?
Essentially having only bid against yourself the entire time and no other "real" bidders? I'd report it to Ebay so they look into this seller's practices. I did it once and they replied that they proved he was doing this.

Either way I'm glad you got what you wanted.
Very nice.