Hey Kupo, sorry to hear about it, if I would have known I would have helped. At least I can shed some light on the situation for you.
The person that had your pin for sale was selling his ENTIRE Jessica collection all at once. My eBay alerts went off the charts! He sold the jumbos of Peter Pan, Mrs. Incredible, Hercules, Esmerelda, Jasmine, The Mad Hatter, Queen of Hearts, Ursula, Blue Fairy, King and I, Meet Me in St. Louis, French Maid (#drool), all the Jessica Devil pins, all the WDIs, all the Jessica DSF decades, box sets, about a dozen other really cool Jessica Shopping pins, and, yes, your catwoman pin.
This caused a frenzy because buyers were damn near guaranteed that they were all real; this wasn't some noob selling off 10 Jessica as Ursulas at once, it was a legitimate collection. Because of this, people went nuts. I saw them within 2 hours of the collection going up for sale, and I started bidding, casual at first, then it started to get serious. Following the same line of thought as Luis75, even though I was broke, in the ending last few minutes I bid up to 217 on Peter Pan, 140 on Hercules, 120 on the Maid, 172 on catwoman (yes that was me), 120 on Jasmine, and 120 on Hatter thinking I would sell whatever I had to to pay for these pins. I was winning them ever since the auctions went up when they started at $.99. I bid so high because I wanted to be sure I won them and never ever thought they would ever go above the crazy numbers I bid; they usually sell for 1/2 to 2/3 my bids, and indeed I was winning them for about 2/3 to 3/4 my max bids.
The last 24 hours of auction, everything spiked. I had to re-up my smaller bids to try to keep up. I was still winning all of them up to the last 10 seconds of each. Then I got hit with the flood of last second bidders. People went nuts. I got capped out on every single one I bid on except Jasmine, which I won for 84. I personally have never seen these specific pins sell for this much. I don't think they ever will again either because it took someone selling their entire collection for this to happen the way it did.
What happens is either people have ebay alerts that go off and they see that someone is selling everything (I have one that is set to email me whenever someone sells something with the terms Jessica As Pin in the description - I got like 20 emails at once this time) OR they saw that the guy had one Jessica for sale and went and looked at what else he had for sale and went "Oooooooooohhhhhh $^&*!!!!!!!" when they saw his items and the frenzy begins. I was battling the same 3-4 bidders the whole time, guys with a lot more money than me. I can say for certainty that there was no shill bidding, and I think this seller probably made between 2 and 3 grand off his sales.
Just thought I would try to explain the total freaking madness, and I really hope you get your grail someday. I know you will, it is just a matter of patience. Dang, you want it so bad, if had had won it I would have had to find some way to get it to you, even if it was a zap. Someone got me my grail pin that way and I never forgot it. I promise that if on the extremely rare off chance that the winning bidder doesn't pay and I get a Second Chance Offer (I was the second highest bidder) for your pin, I will grab it and all of DPF will make sure it ends up in your hands, somehow.
Good luck and sorry about the mess, eBay is known to me as evilbay for a very good reason!
That would be wrong and stupid on their part >_< Either way, what's over is over ^_^ I'll keep looking and if anyone hears anything about this pin...please let me know haha
To each his own I guess, I'd prefer staying on this site, where it is authorized pins only xD
