This police officer badge is a great item. The difficulty here comes in keeping track of it.
Town wants this item. It doesn't matter who gets it, it just matters that we know who has it. If mafia buys the badge, we lose track of it. Mafia also wants this item. But they don't want accountability for having the item. So they will bid secretly. But because I have bid all of my money on this item, if I don't end up with it, either Dawn or some other rich role bought it or mafia can share money. And if they buy it anyways, hey, mafia wasted $1001 on a useless item. It keeps the item from getting lost through a secret bid.
I know I'm not well trusted right now. So if I end up with the badge, I won't choose who to scan, I'll put it to a vote. Then I'll scan whoever is selected for the vote and let you know the result. At that point, killing me (or, hopefully, a scum scan), will validate the result. The hope is to keep this transparent and make it impossible for the badge to get lost.
I suppose a third option would be that mafia just kills me and gets rid of the item that way, but I hope I've got enough attention on me to avoid that.
I won't have any money after this, so I won't be buying anything for the foreseeable future, but hopefully this will keep things transparent.