Ebay lameness, or normal??

[amber]

Okay, so I really, really want this. I got a record player a few months back.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...MEWA%3AIT&rd=1

But besides that, my point is - this thing started out at 25 dollars, why do people keep bidding way before the time runs out? It just drives the price way up. If they'd started bidding just a bit before time ran out, someone could have gotten these at reasonable prices. Heck, when I last looked last night, it was still at 53 dollars. Now it's almost 100 dollars.
Is there something I'm missing? I mean, a reason to bid on things way before hand even though you know you'll drive the price way up? Do people with more money do it to take away the possibility that people will be able to outbid them? I guess sometimes it wouldn't make a difference, the price would go up high anyway - but I've also seen people just start bidding at the last, and the price stayed lower.