Yahoo Auctions
Yahoo Auctions is the Japanese Ebay. The language barrier makes it Japanese-only, if you don't count the few foreigners. There are effectively no competitors in bidding from the rest of the world and the prices are relatively low. Sometimes you can observe really strange behavior in these auctions. Is it the same on Ebay? I don't know. The starting price determines the number of bidders: The fountain pen Pilot Custom 845 is a pen many people want to buy because it is partly coated in urushi ( Japanese lacquer ). At one day, two pens were available at the same time in Yahoo Auctions. One auction with a starting price of 20000 Yen and the other with a starting price of 100 Yen. The 20000 Yen auction attracted two bidders and finally I could buy it for 23000 Yen. The 100 Yen auction attracted about 30 bidders and finally was sold for 24500 Yen. And this happens often. So many times I saw an auction where apparently nobody was interested. When the seller than in one of the next...