Point One

You have made certain assumptions about that auction which might be but are not necessarily true. Although I agree that it is unlikely that the seller knew what he had or there value, It is entirely possible that he did. Many sellers do auction things of which they don't know the value for the very reason that they believe that the best way to get the best price on those items is to place it in a competive auction since they have no idea what to offer the item for. That is reflective of their "Faith in the Auction Process"

Non Chip example

I have a friend who is a full time seller of stuff on Ebay. He is quite informed about a large variety of antiques. He came across a flag which he offered for sale on Ebay. This was not an item he had much knowledge about. He certainly didn't know its value. He placed it for auction with no reserve and a minimum bid of $99. When the auction was over the winning bidder bought the flag at the winning bid of approximately $25,000.00.

I'm willing to bet that he would do that again if he knew the value of the flag even though flag collectors and museum curators might sit around and talk of his being uninformed when he puts a flag like this up for $99

Point Two

Were people joining groups to decrease the final price or where they doing so to pool there assets in or order to buy the chips.

If collectors recognized that they would not be able to buy the whole lot do to the expense but enter into a collective group to buy the lot and then share it, such an arrange is not anti-competitive, it is in fact good for the auction.

Why is it good for the auction? It increased the number of bidders who would pay a higher price. It made more money available to bid. Such an arrangememnt would only be anticompetetive if all the bidders entered into one collective group.