I've been noticing the crazy prices those Helmars are going for. It seems any major players have averaged around 250, it's crazy prices for pieces that seem to have no collector value.
I have been sort of racking it up to misinformation. The winners have seemed to not have very high feedback scores, which leads me to believe they are not seasoned collectors buying these, but posssibly newbies who think these may be real pieces. I wonder what the return rate is? As we all know, people rarely read descriptions, glance at photos and blame the sellers for what they clearly did not notice.
As far as shilling on these, it's possible. However, I have always put shilling on the shoulders of stupid people. If someone gets shilled on the Bay it's their own fault. I only put the first bid in because I don't want people to end auctions early, if there is a previous bid I put it on my watch list to show interest to the seller. Then I either use "auction sniper" or if I have the time available, snipe it myself. Bidding against people during the span of an auction wastes money, time and encourages shilling. There is very little opportunity to shill a sniper (really only one...a reserve
).