fotherbale wrote: "If the proxy was willing to pay more than I am, so be it - I am not willing to pay more than I think something is worth just to have the satisfaction of beating everyone else!"

An item's value is often subjective, and thus of different value to different bidders e.g. part of a set and a bidder wants to complete the set; it's a particular colour/pattern that would match just right with a bidder's decor; it'd make the perfect gift for an urgently imminent occasion.

(Two personal examples: I once was tasked to replace breakages in my family's china sets and to increase the number of place settings. So seeing a particular design meant more to me than those bidders just wanting any nice china set. Last week I wanted a craft die that can be used fine on its own but with two similar ones allows elements to be combined and increase versatility. So to me the die was valuable as "part of a set" due to its dimensions and design of the curved edges, yet to others probably it was just a nice die of a generic style that has plenty available on eBay.)

And it's eBay, not somewhere like Sotheby's or Bonhams where you tend to have wealthy bidders with cash to splash. Here other bidders will be like me (mostly anyway) - financially unable and rationally unwilling to overbid "just to have the satisfaction of beating everyone else".