Auction Fever

I'm a fan of the Comedian Harmonists. I own a number of CD's of their music, and probably have most of their repertoire in my collection.

I check eBay once in a while to browse and when I do, I always check if there's anything new under "comedian harmonists". Just recently, the autographed photo below was offered for sale.

Comedian Harmonists
(from left: Robert Biberti, Erich Collin, Erwin Bootz, Roman Cycowski, Harry Frommermann, Ari Leschnikoff)

The photo is well known - it's the one you'll find in Wiki for instance. An autographed copy would be very rare indeed. The photo was being sold through eBay's "Live Auctions" by a company in Ohio. They had a pre-auction estmate of $75-100 with an opening bid of $40, so I put in a modest bid (considering US$ exchange, shipping, my current budget for frivolous purchases, and the 22.5% buyers premium).

Apparently I need not have bothered to strain myself - the winning bid? $380.

Ouch.