Thanks for the advice and suggestions. Clicking on the Confirmation button didn't remove the listing, btw. It was a red herring.
I always try to keep the list in "My Snipes" set on "Ready to Snipe" if that answers another question.
Also, the auction number was 3241549977 and the lead time was 4 seconds. I usually use 4 seconds and have had a lot of success on bunches of auctions already. I may increase to 5 seconds, I suppose...
I also came upon the fact after I posted that bid increases are only $.50 in the range I bid in, so if anything I *should have won* the item, or at least forced the other buyer's proxy up to the next increment if it exceeded my snipe.
I presume Sunday night is a rush time for bidding and AS wasn't able to place my snipe in a timely fashion. Also, I suspect the reason the item lingered in my "My Snipes" list in limbo, as it were, saying "Ready" to snipe even though the auction had long since ended, was a glitch related to AS "catching up" perhaps with what was going on. I'm still bummed I lost out on this item -- it was REALLY what I was looking for -- but Such Is Life, and it's clearly spelled out in the AS sign-up literature and on help pages that AS doesn't guarantee a snipe will ever be placed. (shrugs) We takes our chances and we gets what we gets.
Already I have had to outbid my own snipe on a couple other recent auctions when bidding has gotten down to the wire (in the last 90 seconds, when AS freezes sniping) and my snipe has been exceeded. Lucky for me I watched those auctions closely or I wouldn't have known until after the fact that my snipe was eclipsed. AS is great, but there's no substitute for watching an important auction through to the last second in case bidding skyrockets and the snipe is left in the dust even before it can be placed. In that case, manual bidding is the only way out, and it's worked in one case, and in another it hasn't. Sure would be helpful if AS could tell what a high bidder's *proxy* is (and whether a snipe is likely to be eclipsed), rather than simply compare the snipe to the "high bid" amount. (WINK WINK!)
Thanks again to everyone who responded. Don't know if the situation I described can actually be clarified any better than what has been suggested, but if you care to post again now that I've given the auction number and lead time for the snipe with new info I'll check back in a couple days. Again, thanks for your help folks.
