When I bid on coins I NEVER bid the actual maximum on ebay; I just use gixen.com and place my actual willingness to pay there.
The reason is that for most goods (luxury goods, stuff with resale value, stuff where you might now all the details, etc.) you are actually dealing with a common value auction, so you DON'T want to reveal your cards before hand.
For instance, suppose I see an auction with 5 existing bids.. I stop and say wait that's probably something interesting, and start doing a bit more research on the value of the coin.
Similarly, I might do some quick research and decide that a coin is valued at $10, but if I see bids at $100 that means that either my prior was wrong or the bidders are wrong, and thus I do a bit more research and try to see if there is anything special about the coin (e.g. the quality is actually higher than what the auction description says).
Then besides all these rational motives, you have the irrational ones. A lot of people bid on things almost like gambling (bid the maximum+1, if that doesn't make them the highest bidders, then keep bidding). If you don't place your bid out there, you prevent this problem altogether.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_value_auction
The reason is that for most goods (luxury goods, stuff with resale value, stuff where you might now all the details, etc.) you are actually dealing with a common value auction, so you DON'T want to reveal your cards before hand.
For instance, suppose I see an auction with 5 existing bids.. I stop and say wait that's probably something interesting, and start doing a bit more research on the value of the coin.
Similarly, I might do some quick research and decide that a coin is valued at $10, but if I see bids at $100 that means that either my prior was wrong or the bidders are wrong, and thus I do a bit more research and try to see if there is anything special about the coin (e.g. the quality is actually higher than what the auction description says).
Then besides all these rational motives, you have the irrational ones. A lot of people bid on things almost like gambling (bid the maximum+1, if that doesn't make them the highest bidders, then keep bidding). If you don't place your bid out there, you prevent this problem altogether. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_value_auction