Any bidding process that allows the AH the right to bid on the consignor's behalf, regardless of the reserve being disclosed at the outset of bidding, is an invitation for manipulation. Why? Because under such a system bidders have no way of knowing if any particular bid was placed by the AH on the consignor's behalf or was bid by a genuine third-party bidder prepared to purchase based on that hammer bid. Disclosure by the AH of any reserve can somewhat reduce the likelihood of future manipulation, at least at that price level where the reserve has been disclosed and reached, and the bidding has reached a level around what the market expected the item to fetch pre-bidding. However, even in that instance, a bidder would still run the risk that the only reason the reserve was reached was because a prior bid had been induced based on the false assumption by that bidder that he/she was bidding against a real third-party bidder and not the AH.
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