My absolute bestest.eBay.purchase.ever was actually one of the best bargains I have gotten anywhere, and was incidentally one of my first eBay transactions.
Though I adopted a Buy it Now only policy early on, I did try my hand at a few auctions as an eBay newbie, and one evening in December, many years ago, I was actually searching for something else - some obscure embroidery from some far-flung place, when I happened across a beautiful little rug, old, but not too old, hand-made in a home for home use in a little mountain village somewhere in the Karakols, the seller had family there, and on a visit, had enterprisingly gathered up some of them that the owners were tired of - after all, they made new ones as a matter of course - but he figured, and quite rightly, that there would be a market for them in the US, so he brought them back, and put them on eBay.
He put his opening bid price at a dollar, and was charging $25 to ship. Not unreasonable, to UPS a rug, even a small one will have some weight.
Bidding was fast and furious for them, too, from the high hundreds and a couple creeping up into the 4 figures and it was a few minutes before his auctions would end.
But the prettiest one had somehow escaped anybody's attention, so with like a minute left, I clicked, and bid $2.
By the time the screen had changed, the auction was over, and so for $26 I obtained a fabulous old hand-knotted rug which to this day occupies the place of honor in the Grand Drawing Room of the stately several square foot Townhome that is Puff Palace!