I am having some trouble set a variable to a
  node-set that contains "*".

There is nothing special about a *appearing in element content
so I guess the error is in part of your stylesheet that you didn't show
us. 

For example

  <xsl:variable name="bidHeader" select="."/>

where is that occuring? would the * stop that template being executed,
for example
<xsl:template match="cell[.='BidType']">
  <xsl:variable name="bidHeader" select="."/>

would cause the variable to be set just if the * was not there

David

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