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For anyone interested, there is an auction currently running for an MHR1 slide rule on ebay (thanks to the seller for letting us know about it). This is highly collectible and the high bid is already nearly 400 pounds (over $600 US). Since there are still two days to go in the auction, I suspect it will finish at least 50% higher than the current bid.

A little general advice for buyers on ebay: never bid early. Wait until the last ten seconds. This is called "sniping", and there are services that will automate the task for a very small fee. Using a service prevents the usual errors like missing the deadline or forgetting to log in before you place that last-minute bid and also circumvents the psychology of bidding wars. Here's a nice article describing how and why sniping works.

Sellers can also learn something from this specific auction. The starting price was set at £0.99. That's the way to go for any item that meets a minimum standard of buyer interest (only goes wrong if there's just one potential buyer for your item in the whole ebay world).

Frank Reed
Conanicut Island  USA