I think than Magpie's auction teaches us several lessons about Ebay selling:

1. Price of most collectible razors -- such as Fiilarmonicas -- can fluctuate heavily in the short term based on supply. If you search what else is being listed for Fili 14 Doble Temple right now on the Bay, you'll notice that there are numerous listings for high price ($300) NOS on close to NOS, or razors with flaws (e.g., chipped, shortened blade, large amounts of rust). In other words ,there are very few promising "bargain" auctions in the present. Within this setting, a clean, shave ready $0.99 listing from a reputable US seller will garner a lot of interest. In other words, Magpie's timing for listing the razor was optimal from a selling standpoint.

2. A razor without any competition in its price range will fetch higher bids. If there were 5 other sellers offering clean, shave ready Fili 14s with low starting bids, it would arguably drive prices down across the board. Bidders might spread out and divide their focus on on 1 or 2 razors. Instead on there being one big bidding war, there might be multiple, smaller bidding wars. The bidders might think that they can share the spoils and thus might not get quite a competitive.

3. Lack of recent activity can create higher prices. I follow Fili auctions regularly, and it seem like it has been pretty slow for the last 2 months with Fili 14 Doble Temple auctions with low starting bids. The lack of activity might prevent certain buyers from forming expectations about prices. If there are higher auction volumes, a buyer might believe that a certain razor is only worth a certain amount. If the buyer sees an auction exceed that perceived amount, the buyer might refrain from bidding based on the belief that a similar item will come along soon that the buyer can win at a lower price.

4. Auctions with high numbers of bids can draw more bidders and higher bids. For one. Ebay has a search filter to list by highest number of bids first. A $200 item with 30 bids would show up higher than a $200 item with 1 bid. I further suspect that buyers view an item with a lot of bids as more coveted. This could also get the competitive juices flowing.