I've been selling on eBay for more than 15 years now, and also purchase quite often. Bob, I'm not at all surprised by what you see. But go to the "Active Listings" screen available to you, and tell us how many are WATCHING each item.
As a general rule, consider me as a potential buyer with this thought pattern:
"Here's a nice used engine, think I'll bid and watch it. Heck, it won't sell for more than $45 anyway."
"Wow, there's one NIB! I'm gonna watch that, maybe even go to Auction Sniper and set it to bid $120 with just 3 seconds left to go. But I'm not gonna bid NOW - the less attention it gets, the lower the selling price when the bidding is finished. Maybe I can even get it for $95!"
I pay much more attention to the number of watchers than the current bid price. On rare items, I've had well over 50 different buyers watching items - in that situation, you literally KNOW you'll get top dollar.
Now, if you have a nice item currently at $3.25 and only 3 watching it ... well, you might take a beating on that item.
Hope this gives you some insight, focus on the number watching because they're all potential last-minute bidders/buyers.
(I was watching an item just today that seemed stuck at around $33 ... I set Auction Sniper to put in a bid of over $100 with just 3 seconds left. And my last-minute bid lost.)
Good luck Bob, you've listed some nice stuff in the past and I've enjoyed my purchases from you!
Dennis
Auction Sniper: The only way to bid, very inexpensive -
]http://www.auctionsniper.com/default.aspx]