This may be drifting a bit OT, but as one of our number just lost the chance to buy an item because of a misunderstanding of how best to use eBay, I thought I'd comment.... Most Internet auction sites, including eBay, employ a technique known as proxy bidding. You should not enter bids at eBay the way you would in a traditional live "outcry" auction -- the sort that's typically shown in movies. To use a proxy bidding system such as eBay, you should decide ahead of time how much you're willing to pay for an item. Make your decision based on a rational assessment of the item's value. In the case of eBay, you can perform a search and then click a little box on the left side of the screen that reads "Completed Listings," then click the "Show Items" button. This will show you all the completed auctions that match the search. If your item isn't too rare, chances are you'll find some similar items and therefore be able to judge what the market value is and decide if you're willing to pay that much for the item. If not, either hope for a bargain or search for another item.
Once you've decided your top value, enter it into eBay's bidding system. Even if your top bid is substantially over the current top bid, you won't pay your top value unless somebody else bids something very close to it. On eBay, the sale price is set by the second-highest bidder's bid! So if you and I are competing for an item and you bid $100 whereas I bid $50, you'll pay $51 (assuming a $1 increment at that value; I'm not sure if that's correct).
Bidding as you did, by incremental bidding, has several drawbacks. One is that you can easily get outbid at the end by somebody who bid more but whose bid you'd have been willing to beat. Another is that you can easily get caught up in a bidding war, where you and another incremental bidder both try to outbid each other. For instance, suppose you and I both subjectively value an item at $50, and we both start incremental bidding. If I enter the $50 bid, you might think, "oh, I'll just bid $1 more and get it; $1 isn't that much more," at which point the price goes to $51; then I bid $52, and so on. Sooner or later, one of us will be stuck paying $10 or $20 more than the item is worth. The seller, of course, will love this, but whoever wins could end up with buyer's remorse. Note that a bidding war like this really only requires one incremental bidder. That's what happened to you -- you were bidding incrementally against another bidder's fixed bid.
As an alternative to using eBay's proxy bidding, consider sniping. This practice is thoroughly described here, but briefly, it's just placing your high bid at the last possible moment. (Software and Web sites exist to assist in this practice, if you don't want to be chained to your computer when the auction ends. I use jBidWatcher for this purpose.) The main advantage is that you avoid irrational bidding wars, such as I just described. Sniping is, however, controversial; some people dislike snipers, but I personally don't, and in fact I firmly agree with the point of view expressed on the site I just referenced. I have yet to see a convincing anti-sniping argument. Sniping can, of course, fail; you can be outbid by a person who simply entered a higher proxy bid at the start, or badly-timed Internet sluggishness can prevent your bid from being entered. Still, on the whole it's the way I generally prefer to bid, with an earlier proper use of proxy bidding being my second choice.
Anyhow, best of luck finding an enlarger. If you use eBay for this purpose, I hope this post helps you do so more effectively in the future.
