Well, I am the proud owner of a 1966 paperback copy of Modesty Blaise. When I entered the bid a few days ago, I entered a ceiling that I thought at the time was over the top, but I didn't want to have to think about the bid and if anyone wanted the book so badly that they would push it beyond that price, they could have it.

So a few minutes ago I'm watching the last few minutes of the bidding on the dial-up, which means about 30 seconds between refreshes. My original low bid still held, no one else had bid, and I thought I had a good deal. Hit refresh one last time and found that hey, I won.

Then I went to pay and found that the winning price was 2 and a half times my original bid! Not as bad as it sounds, but it took the book from mass market pb into trade paper range. So I went back and checked and found that someone had tried to snake me by entering a bid about 3 seconds before the end of the auction.

I know all's fair in love and Ebay, but three seconds is a little below the belt.

So, my high ceiling proved to be not so high after all. And I got the book. So there. Nyah.