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Posted By: davidcycleback

I understand letting a friend have that special item on his wantlist, but, I have to tell you, if this suppression of bidding is widespread in a small area of collecting it sure comes across like reverse-shilling. Shilling often involves a friend bidding in order to artificially raise the value (hurting the winner). This involves a friend withholding bids and often artificially lowering the value (hurting the seller). Pardon me if I fail to see a big difference between the two-- I'm sure the seller (who doesn't happen to be a friend) won't.

Perhaps eBay sellers should turn to private auctions and, when asked for a reason why, link to this thread.

Scott Gaynor once said he used to have to make private eBay auctions of a specific type of material, as the main collectors would collude bidding depending on who had placed a bid on what. I assume the bidding was much similar to as what is described here.