Pete

I will agree that a reserve is an up front shill bid. If a reserve is not a legal up front shill bid, what is it?

In the first paragraph you point out that a reserve is up front and the next two you say just the opposite. All this does is make shill bidding and placing a reserve more similar.

You don't bid on reserve auctions until it meets the reserve (if all bidders did this reserves would be obsolete) so apparently an auction with a reserve could be used as "an underhanded trick and fraud to make it look like something is more valuable than it is".

Once again, I repeat, I am not going to justify or even try to justify one and condemn the other.

Norman