I really only got one offer with a dollar amount, that was early Sunday night before the bidding began to take off, that offer was 18K and it was from an AZ member. What I really got was a lot of was people that were convinced that I wouldn't let the auction run it's course and wanted to argue with me when I told them I wouldn't. One AZ member was very insistant that I was going to end the auction early and deprive him from his right to buy it, got quite angry at me when I kept telling him the way it was going to go, and he dropped out of the bidding at about 20K. This auction got to 20K so fast, that the low-ballers really didn't get a chance. An interesting thing was that until the auction reached 20K, all my contacts were about the authenticity of the cue, from people that doubted (and didn't have the knowledge to know for themselves) that the stick was a real Gus. After the bidding took off, the majority of my questions had to do with the procedures of paying and delivery, security, etc. Interestingly, I spoke at length with both of my top 2 bidders, and neither really had one question about the cue itself, they were very secure in what they were seeing. I don't have a hit counter on my auctions, I wish I had one on the Szam auction, I had over 1000 "watchers" at the end, and Earthlink charged me $256 extra dollars for going way over my quota for web traffic on the pictures, I had never come close to that limit before. I think had the bidding gone slower early, I would have had more "buy-it-now" offers, by Monday, with 6 days left in the auction, the bidding was already well past what the "buy-it-now" folks would have offered anyway.
My 2 cents on this sellers expectation of buyer's behavior thread. Tate weighed in with the take the "personal" out and I think that is a great advice. Disney (used to be better at it) indoctrinates their employees that they are ALL cast members with a role to play, so when they interact with a customer it is their character interacting and they should react like their character reacts, rather than how they personally would react. I'll admit, sometimes its hard, like when someone has just sent you their 15 eMail in a row claiming that you are a liar and you will end your auction early. Every offer is an opportunity to do business, why be offended?