Good point Don, and thank you for raising that. If indeed the seller is willing to sell the chip at the starting asking price, then what you say is true, and the seller's return is measured starting from the original cost. On the other hand, what is the purpose of an auction if the seller is willing to sell an item at a fixed price already? I also know that what you say is not valid for a number of sellers however. I have seen $1 current chips placed for auction at 99 cents, and desirable chips starting at $1 go for much higher, and finally I have seen a valuable chip go for 1 cent (not in our statistical analysis). Sometimes there is no second bidder for any one of a number of reasons and the seller has to take the loss, having started out with a low starting price.