[Sheverlay]

After a couple years, I have learned that bidding early just drives the price up. If you bid your max early, you still might win, but you will probably end up paying more that if you would have waited til the auction's close and bid the same amout. As far as bid sniping being against the rules: not on ebay, but on yahoo, if a bid is placed within the last few min. the auction gets automatically extended to prevent this. I think I read somewhere that people tried to petition ebay to prevent sniping a couple years ago, but ebay decided against it. Also, there automatic sniping tools out there that put in a bid for you within the last few seconds, so you don't have to be there when the auction closes. Never tried it though, because I don't like idea of giving a 3rd party company my ebay ID and pass.