But they can do that on ebay, and if they do, it could leave them with their own bid being the high bid.

If it only drives your bid higher, then you are raising the current market price for that particular watch. Surely you wouldn't bid more than you are willing to pay for the watch, so there's no harm to the bidder. I worked at a car auction for a few years and the auctioneers would take bids from phantom bidders just to get close to the seller's reserve - if they didn't, a lot of cars would not have made it to the reserve. Of course, some times it started a bidding frenzy. They never took phantom bids once the reserve was met.

To get around this somehow uncomfortable informal auction, all someone really has to do is post a message here that they are entertaining offers, testing the waters, etc. - it's been done before. To me that's less appealing because you have NO IDEA where the offers are. Never heard anybody call that method into question. Hell, even posting a watch can get a ton of email offers when you aren't trying to sell it. Trust me. It happened to me with my Siffert and it happened when I posted a request for info on my friend's Paul Newman (boy! that watch brought in some huge offers!)

The informal auction at least keeps the bidders informed of the current status. Clearly, it worked well for that first test. The seller multiplied his take and someone still got a rare watch at market price.

: I don't understand these informal auctions. Can't someone make up
: bids if they are devious?

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