[Jeffhs]

I looked at the RCA on ebay which was going for $299.99 (see my further comments below). I agree; the seller might have misplaced a decimal point. Small portables like that from the '50s aren't worth anywhere near $300 these days, and I seriously doubt if they actually sold for anyplace near that much when they were new. If this were something like an RCA CT-100 or some other rare color set, yes, I could see an opening bid in the hundreds of dollars, but for crying out loud--you can find sets such as that RCA portable mentioned above at thrift shops, garage sales, etc. dirt cheap. Seems to me, if the seller of that set didn't make a mistake on the opening bid, he/she may have been trying to get as much money as possible from the sale, the rules of fair trading be darned. Such people, IMO, don't know much about auctions, online or otherwise. There is a fair price for items being sold at auction; the seller should state it and adhere to it, rather than running his/her opening bid so high as to be ridiculous. I saw a Hallicrafters short-wave receiver on ebay the other night that had an opening bid of $6,000. I have been an amateur radio operator for over 30 years and know that these receivers, while they were top-of-the-line in their day, did not sell for anything even close to that $6k figure when they were new in the '50s. Three or four hundred dollars, yes, but nowhere near $1k, let alone that one's opening bid.

Oh well. This is just another example (IMO) of price gouging, or at least someone just wanting to get as much money from a sale as possible. These people have a lot to learn about fair trading practices.

BTW: The bidding for that RCA portable, the one with the opening bid at one penny under $300, has ended, but the item was relisted. This person must want to unload that set in the worst way, but if he really wants to do that in a hurry, IMO, he should knock off all but $30-40 from that ridiculously high opening bid. I wouldn't be surprised if there was one heck of a bidding war going on for that set, even as I write this.