If a seller sets a reserve price of, say, $100 and I put in a maximum bid of $125 and the second highest bidder has already bid $50. Then does eBay immediately up my bid by $50 and I would win the item for $100 (assuming no more bids) or does it limit my bid to the next increment over $50 and the auction ends without a winner? If eBay does increase my bid to the reserve price then when do I know? Does the bidding history show an immediate jump from $50 to $100? If so, then do I know whether the increase happened because the second highest bidder's maximum bid was a little under $100 which is what would happen in a non-reserve auction or do I know it was because of the reserve price. I know the auction will indicate that the reserve price has been met. If my maximum bid was $75 then what happens? I'm not a big fan of auctions with reserve prices. If $100 is a seller's minimum price then start the bidding at $100. I'm always a bidder and never a seller so maybe there's a perspective that I'm missing. I'm not so much complaining as curious as to how reserve auctions work.