A Dutch auction is were the seller has a number of the same item and asks that you place your best bid, when the auction is over the top bidders get the items. Dutch auctions can start at any value, it is all up to what the bidders will go to. You can also bid on as many or as few of the items as you desire.
You will find a couple threads here discussing these. They can be a boon if you know what you are doing or you can get burnt if you don't. As a for-instance, if someone is selling 10 items and the bidding is $1, $2, $3, $4, and $5 (opening bid = $1): if you bid $1 for 1 item, 6 items will sell for $1. If you bid $1 for 10 item, 10 items will sell for $1, but you only won 5 of them. If you bid $100 for 1 item, 6 items will sell for $1. If you bid $100 for 9 items, 10 items will sell for $5 and you get 9 of them. However, if you bid $100 for 10 items, you win all 10 for $100. All items sell for the 10th highest bid. If you bid correctly, you can usually get a bargain because most people do not understand how to bid them and, therefore, don't bid.
