Tubologic wrote:
Leigh's tactic is perfectly valid in the 21st century and still the best one if you absolutely want to win an item and (important) have unlimited funds to invest in your hobby.
Though It would be pretty naïve to think that you are the only one knowing and using this tactic, or "having the balls" sniping 10 times or more the current price at the last second. Sooner or later you'll be competing with another bidder using the same tactic and you'll end up either being outbid (no big harm) or worse, being the "unlucky winner" of a 1,000$ little AA-5 radio.
That is always a possibility, though it never happened to me.
I've been bumped one or two bid increments, perhaps a few more on one or two occasions.
I did see one guy get burned using a similar tactic on an auction on which I didn't bid.
He ended up paying over $400 for what seemed to me to be a rather ordinary AA5.
Perhaps there was some unusual feature or aspect that I didn't know about.
I never bid on items that are of mainstream interest, that have dozens or hundreds of folks watching the sale. Those typically do not interest me in the first place, so my targets are usually rather unusual test equipment or other stuff with limited viewers. I'm often willing to pay a lot of money for things most folks would find uninteresting and not useful.
- Leigh