[frankbmd]

Auction rules and formats at the discretion of the seller seem appropriate. I do understand the complaint and for higher valued items an appropriate incremental bid should be specified.

I have tinkered with the idea of allowing a secret (via PM) max bid option so that the auction would allow bidders not to be available at the end of the auction, which is not the norm here. One would have to have confidence in the seller, in this case me, for this to work. I also think that transparency of all bids after the auction is over would be helpful, so everyone could see how they won or lost. The seller would have to be available to post incremental bids for the max bidders particularly toward the end of the auction. This would eliminate the possibility of a $1 overbid sniping a max bidder toward the end of the auction. There would of course have to be an understanding that a single seller would not be able to handle bids with the speed of auction house or EBay software, but all bids would be timed and the true winner could be determined, with perhaps some time delay and when all the bidding is disclosed, it would be obvious to all.

If this post generates any interest, I would be happy to host such an auction of a card of some value to see how it works, both for the bidders and for me. Obviously it will require a bit more time on the sellers part and all sellers will not be interested in doing it this way, but some others might.

Let me know what you think, either here or by PM.