Yes, but that is NOT what we're talking aboot here. What we're talking aboot is an auction which is converted to a private sale to a "closed bid" because nobody bid enough soon enough to satisfy the seller.
By the same token, no auction house will reveal the reserve price on reserve auctions; that is the exact same kind of privileged information. Otherwise it would just be the minimum bid. And often, high-ticket auction houses will receive private bids on open auctions... and if that private bid takes it, they do NOT reveal the amount of that bid; the only thing you can know is the highest open bid. You can't even be sure that
private bidder x bid higher than that highest open bid; the seller usually has the option to accept a lower bid if they dislike the highest open bidder.
I know this is a weird tangent to what normal folks would consider to be normal auction practices, but keeping the amount of the "closed bid" private makes sense. Not sure why eBay offers this (I don't know exactly how, but I'm pretty sure they get more money this way in the end; maybe they base the fees on the listing price no matter what it actually sold for?); I'd
guess that it's an evolution of their
Dutch Auction format which has been there since day one standard auction practices to emulate these high-ticket auction houses and make more money from people with money to spare.
![Confused :-//](https://www.eevblog.com/forum/Smileys/default/confused0024.gif.pagespeed.ce.5xOqKkq0Co.gif)
*
mnem
*EDITED oodles of time because it didn't even make sense to me