Some folks must be becoming millionaires on eBay

I was looking at patterns on eBay this week. I have selected a few for baby afghans and made reasonable bids. There was a lovely white one that had blocks of Irish crochet roses as a larger border, then surrounded by a smaller border. It was lovely! It ended today,...at $17.35!!! With shipping, that's $20 for one pattern!
What were these people thinking. Another copy of it will probably show up in a few weeks, the seller hoping to get $20 for their copy, too. Most likely it'll go for $2or 3. Several people got involved in a bidding war, or an "I've got to have that" fever.
Meanwhile the patterns that I've bid on are sitting there at a nice 99 cents. I can get about $20 patterns at that rate!