Way back when Atlantic City was still Atlantic City (i.e., before the casinos arrived), I went there in hopes of finding a job so that I could remain there for the summer, and for a few hours was employed in one of those Boardwalk tourist-trap establishments that conducted "closed sale" auctions of objets d'art and other useful novelties. The auctioneer would solicit bids from the crowd that had entered, do a few freebie giveaways of some of the lowered-valued (and often mass-produced) items, and then close off the premises so that the people seated could bid upon the supposedly higher-valued...