[honus94566]

For ebay auctions, I agree with you, makes zero sense to bid early.

But at an auction house it often makes sense, and delaying your bid till the end can be bad advice. Say you wait until the last minute of an auction, and the item you want has a bid standing at $3000. You have to bid several hundred $$ more (minumum!) to win the item. Yet say you had bid sooner and put your max bid at $3000, if the other bidder is not willing to go higher than that, you win at $3000 which saves you $$ over choosing to delay till the end.

This is especially true as you get higher in price. The higher the price, the higher the bid increments, and the wiser you are to bid early and get yourself in the right position before others beat you to it.

Another thing to consider is psychology of other bidders. If there is an item I really really want, I will often bid early, and have a max bid in place. That way as others bid up the price, I am still the max bidder, and it sends a message that there is somebody else out there that really wants the item, and is willing to pay for it, so it may make that somebody decide to pass on the item. Most bidders don't want to get in a bidding war.