Rich... In an earlier post I stated that I had for an experiment run a reserve auction and was sorry that I did. I said that a bidder was very close to my reserve and gave up. This bidder was you (on my Holiday Casino Bi-Centenial chip). I think we can use this "real life" illustration to prove our point that Reserve auctions are bad for sellers and buyers.

My opening bid was $35 on this chip, and my reserve was $50. Both very reasonable I believe. Rich, you bid $46 on this chip, and were greated with the message "Reserve not met". You did not know you were very close to the reserve I had on the chip and probably just said "the heck with it, who knows what the reserve is, and I am not wasting my time finding out!" It is my opinion (and I may be wrong, because we have not spoken on this issue) that if I would have had my opening bid at $50, you would have bid $50 and we both would have been happy. As it sets I do not have the sale, and you don't have a chip you wanted.

Anyway, contact me if you are still interested in the chip, I am sure we can work something out. Hey, I guess these "reserve auctions" do work. Maybe I can still get the sale and screw ebay out of their commission! Hmmmmm... I wounder if things like this are the reason that ebay is going to start charging a fee for reserve auctions???

Steve