I hope they don't back out. I think they'll be happy to have a few bucks of shipping money and let it go though. They didn't seem to know too much about the item to overly care about it.
Reserves kill auctions most of the time. People see them and give up, assuming it is someone that overvalues their item.
Start the bid at a point where you won't be too upset if it wins at that level and be done with it. Or, gasp, start the bid at the price you want to get in the first place!
I don't know why they allow reserves, they just allow people to avoid paying fees, by paying a smaller listing fee.
There's something to be said by starting certain listings at $.01 or $.99. You get a lot more folks watching your item, and in general get a higher final price. If I had a Snap-on Torque wrench to sell, ABSOLUTELY I would start low like this. But any item that not too many folks are looking for, you've got to be crazy to start this low. On something like this, you either need a reserve or a higher starting bid.
I learned this trick from one of the biggest sellers on eBay (a chain of pawn shops). They start 100% of their auctions at $.99 and had feedback in the 100s of thousands. Everything seemed to be getting very, very good final sale prices. But I guess their trick is to only auction stuff that has a good name brand that has DEMAND. If you can't always pick what you are going to sell, (for example I will part out entire tool collections; some high demand items, some not-so high), then you need to vary your selling technique based on the type of item.
We all know Williams is a quaility brand, but we here at GJ are in the minority.
You dog! 