And you can count me in lol. This was a rare occurrence, and a complex case. I was almost certain the registrar was gonna manage to keep it and claim it its property. That has happened with ultra-valuable names, NetSol is infamous for doing that. The fact that there wasn't a domainer actually selling it no doubt contributed to that final price, even with an 8 it went so high. BTW, did the winner pay yet lol ?
Just weeks ago I saw a LLL.com selling for low $$,$$$. Had I had the money I would've bid on it. It was a triple premium (Western) and worth so much more. Those often go for $40-60,000 now and before we know they'll all be $75-100,000. Hard to believe. If the seller had managed to get the word out that it was an expired domain dropping instead of someone profiting from its sale I'm sure it would've ended up a lot higher. Some domainers envy more successful domainers (and some end users do too) and will go to great lengths to not bid up a name another domainer is selling just so that he doesn't do all that well, amazing...