Here's the latest oddity: why did this Mayfair go for about the same price as this Wheatstone? Especially since the Wheatstone was sold by a real concertina person (and purchased by one--the ubiquitous Chris Algar) and the Mayfair was not.

The only reason that I can come up with was that the Mayfair listing had more hype ("beautiful...exceptional...brand spanking new") than the Wheatstone one. Or did the fact that the Wheatstone was in Australia scare some people away? I realize that the Wheatstone is a late one, and wooden-ended, but I would still think that it should be worth much more than an accordion-reeded Mayfair of roughly comparable age.

Daniel

You want to know why people act in what you consider to be irrational fashion? Often it's because they don't know as much as they think they do. (The bidders' IDs on the May Fair weren't familiar. Maybe they've learned that the name Wheatstone means "value" but don't know that May Fair isn't the same as other Wheatstones?) It's amazing (at least to me) how many people can convince themselves that they're more competent than the experts and professionals, whether the field is home carpentry or investing in stocks. (Well, there's a whole profession of people who make a living convincing others of the "truth" of that fallacy.)