NavList:

Alan, you wrote:
"Looked at the "auction" a moment ago. Bid price was up to $308.99, reserve not met was also seen."

You'll learn. There is NO POINT watching the bids at this point in time. I agree completely with Brad: the only way to bid is to snipe. Personally I prefer to pay a few pennies to a service to process my snipe bids (since otherwise I may forget entirely if I'm busy with some other project). The only bids that matter are the ones posted in the last ten seconds at most. People bidding with days left generally fall into one of two categories. They're either genuinely interested bidders with limited ebay experience who have fallen for the "illusion" of the long auction, or they're mildly-interested bidders testing to find the reserve price. Either way, they're irrelevant to the "real" auction.

I predict that the final price will be even higher than others have suggested. Given its provenance, this item should be in a museum, and a museum may well buy it.

By the way, I have no suspicions about this auction at all, but you can see how easy it would be to make counterfeits that could sell for thousands of dollars. Get a few craftsmen (or a really good 3d printer) to make ten of these, each with different details and backstory. Then sell them once every six months. You would make $10 grand for sure, maybe 50. Find twenty items like that, and you'll have a million dollars in revenue in just five short years. Minor historical artifacts are safe on ebay, but real historical artifacts and other rare items (coins, e.g.) are a minefield filled with really impressive counterfeits.

-FER

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