[ac2u]

Nope. Made the assumption that because the price was going down rapidly that there were perhaps a few one-man/woman shops that wanted to do work for a price which was more reasonable than $1.

Edit: Also you took a massive leap of extrapolation on what my views were on a short paragraph. Beyond guessing a possible motivation (foot in door as government contractor), there's nothing pinning my views here on the auctioneer being a government contractor rather than private sector.