The funny thing about these auctions is that so many people say, "well, it must be worth $600 (or $800 or $1,000) because someone paid that amount. The market has spoken."

But when you think about it, being the winning bidder at one of these auctions means that, by definition, you were willing to pay MORE THAN what "the market" would offer for that item. In other words, it's not like we took a poll of all the people bidding on the Lifetime razor, averaged out the numbers, and found out that virtually everyone agrees that these are worth $450 +/- $30.

Instead, we let the price go up according to whatever the craziest, richest, lunatic DD Lifetime fanatic in the group is willing to pay. That's not the "market" or "consensus" view of the price, that's the price that just ONE PERSON is willing to pay (or more accurately, it's the price that just TWO PEOPLE are willing to pay, since it takes one other person to keep raising the amount).

So do the stupid impulses of one or two people equal a "market" price for an item? I'm not an economist, but I'm inclined to say no. As I've said in other posts, I think this type of pricing fits more into the category of a "fad" rather than a classical economic market.