Every OA auction I do comes with a standard boat of personal terrors as, while I do research on each item with the assistance of some long-memoried fellows I still have a largely extemporaneous style that can theoretically get me into trouble.  I’m terrified of a Freudian slip or two words coming too close together and forming an ethnic slur and a dedicated team of braincells scan for such things.  A second set of fears is picking a bad minimum bid. $3 is cheap, $5 is normal, $8 is special, $20 is expensive/established price and I refuse to reduce the starting price once announced.  If I miss, I miss.

Bids were sluggish so I moved to a popular item, a grab mug.  I raised it stating the opening bid at $5.   Only one person bid and it sold for $5.  Historically, this means nothing as grab mugs were once sold at a fixed price of $3 consisting of a $1 mug and two or three $0.50 to $1.00 patches, but I’m somewhat proud of getting $12-$18 for these so $5 represented a crisis of confidence.  I was a bit shaken but moved on eventually returning to another mug.  This time, I did exactly what I did last time but mentioned that the mug was rare in that it had a blue fleur-de-lis but was a Boy Scout mug.  Hands shot up and I was redeemed.