A formal Dutch auction is one method that seemed to be underutilised.. A Dutch auction is a dropping price auction ( not Ebay's incorrect idea). I suspect the problem would be that as soon as the asking price is accepted, then everybody would pitch in and try to bid the price up again. This, of course, would defeat the whole purpose of the auction. Dutch auctions are useful if there is only one potential bidder as well, as long as he doesn't know he's on his own.