I like the idea of adding one or two cents to the bid for reasons stated elsewhere in the AS foru; that will leep you losing by one increment. That one or two cent rule should only be applied with snipes which typically come in final moments of the auction; possibly also a proxy bid that is your maximum. Typically, the bidding gets on an even keel with an even dollar or 1/2 dollar amount. Sometimes, briefly to the nearest nickel or dime by someone quite often to change the nature of the bidding or take control and influence or anticipate future amounts bid. Within your winning bid increment, normally you are only responsible for the dollar amount, the exact amount in cents within that winning increment need not be specified when actively bidding throughout the auction. As previously stated, in a Dutch Auction the winning bid is the lowest bid at auction end with repect to the number of items in the auction; although some higher bids might have Won an item(s), if any bid amount is to be questioned its the low winning bid. Temptation might exist to place too high a snipe in a Dutch Auction and you might get burned. Eg with say 9x 1936 US pennies auctioned off with the raised dot on them; there might be flurry of high snipes forcing you to buy at a price you didn't want to pay. Similarly with single item auctions and proxy bidding; an AS example in the forum is the one million dollar proxy. In a single item auction with proxy bidding, the hidden maximum proxy bid (if no one bids higher than that msximum) is the winning bid even if the bidding doesn't reach that amount; that bid which produced the final auction price is the winning bid. If the amount is questionable, you can only be held accountable for the maximum proxy bid; the only one that can be held accountable for the actual amount of the final bid price is the person placing that bid. Suring the proxy bidding, at any given moment in time while you might now own and have won the item at that point in time, whether hours or days remaining, that particular amount has to be dealt with by higher bidders. Regardless of the proxy amount, its the final auction price in the absence of higher bids; the actual winning bid (and are accountable for) is your maximum proxy bid which generated that proxy bid, a bid that is the result of someone else's bidding. The logic is more obvious in the final minutes of an auction, with a flurry of bids; there's insufficient time for people to enter a bid, refresh the screen, the current high bid to register, and repeat the process. More dramatic are snipes to illustrate such, a handful of snipes in the closing seconds will produce a quantity beyond your control whether you have the winning proxy or snipe bid. What would be the purpose of being held accountable for an amount generated as aresult of a bid by domeone else and produced by you maximum proxy bid? If that was nit the case, that could conceivably lead to unsavoury bidding practices by an individual or individuals acting in concert.
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