That story made me giggle, BA.
That reserve might scare em off. We will see.
I think when a buyer holds the winning bid and knows he or she will get it if it ends with their bid, they already feel as if they own it, if just a little bit. They might be more apt to fight for it against an opposing bidder.
I usually create open auctions to create traffic as those types of auctions seem to get a different visibility in the search results then the store auctions do. The gambling aspect of bidding on something is the bigger part of it.
Of course, if you list cool different custom mando items like three weeks in a row, your traffic and resulting bids should grow like a weed.
I didn't read the auction. Does it say what the reserve price was?