Posted by I. Think on April 05, 2001 at 18:09:37:
In Reply to: MW 2145 on ebay..cheap... posted by Matt C. on April 05, 2001 at 10:11:52:
I think the guy is smart. We see auctions all the time where the starting bid and the reserve are very close if not the same. If the starting bid is too close to the value of the item, bidding tends to be slow at best and very little if any interest will be generated in the auction. How many times do we see an instrument with an extremely high starting bid get no bids at all(witness the Cerveny tubas that frequently pop up)? It makes much more sense to start the bidding fairly low with a reasonably high reserve. One can always sell to the high bidder even if the reserve is not met, but if there are no bids, there can't be a high bidder.