From my point of view the seller would do better with a larger minimum bid. There is one seller who, when I see its his auction, I skip over it. Normally the auction is for lower end stuff. There have been times when I have bid full TCR only to see the "reserve not met" sign remain (we're talking chips which many times sell below TCR). It is too frustrating to bid more than generously only to see that damn sign. Rather than waste my time bidding against myself to reach the reserve, I skip it. I'm sure he has auctions where the reserve is reasonable, unfortunately I'll never know because I will have skipped it. There have been several dozen auctions where, because I was in it, the bid was pushed up dramatically. This auctioneer, however, won't have me (and people like me) in his auction to help push the bid. Even in higher end stuff I think the reserve is a losing proposition. Just tonight I bid $175 on a chip with a min bid of $99. Again, "reserve not met". Now if the reserve was $185 - $190 I might have bid it. Unfortunately, I'll never know. The auctioner never contacts the bidder in these cases.