His high number of bids on that item are the result of another bidder. The bidder in question places a bid. The full value of that bid isn't shown, only the value necessary to be winning the auction at that time. The bids that come after that are the result of someone bidding against him. The second bidder keeps bidding but his bids don't show until he makes a bid that is higher than the first bidders original high bid that wasn't previously displayed.
If an item has a current high bid of two dollars and I place a max bid of fifty dollars, the fifty dollars doesn't show up as the leading bid, it will only display the lowest price necessary at that time to win the auction, so it would say three dollars. If someone else starts bidding against me and they bid five dollars, ebay will show the price rising to 5 dollars but it will show that that was my bid since my high bid is already higher than that. If the second bidder bids again with seven dollars, the auction will show another bid from me with the bid of seven dollars. When you see a string of bids from somebody it is often the result of a 2nd bidder trying to find the price ceiling of the first bidder.
I don't think that auction is shilled. That book is a one of a kind considering the grade and link to the creator. The current price is understandable.