[Captain Ahab Jr]

I worked at a car auction and general furniture auction house in my youth, watched 1000's of auctions

It was always interesting to watch the battle of wits between the bidders and auctioneer on who is actually controlling the bidding.

A good auctioneer tries to whoop up excitement, create a fast pace of frenzied bidding to drive the price up beyond the limit mentally set by the bidders. The clever, experienced bidders only bid once and they only show themselves to the rest of the room once the auctioneer confirms they have the winning bid.

All this waving arms in the air, fist pumping and screaming you see on the low rent TV shows is just a bunch of dumb asses grabbing their moment of fame. It's good fun to watch but not the way to get yourself a bargain.

The tactics are exactly the same if you are buying a muti-million dollar car or you're buying an old radio at an estate sale.