Sellers should get better results with reserves compared to just starting at their "reserve". Compare these two scenarios.

1) seller starts their auction at $500. Three guys look at it and say, "I think that's probably more than the frame is "worth". One guy thought it was worth $400, but not $500. None of them can bid. Frame doesn't sell.

2) seller starts their auction at $100. All three guys who look at it put in bids, the highest one pushing the price to $400. Well now we have some momentum. Each additional potential bidder sees that there are other people out there who are interested in this frame. He feels more secure in bidding on it because he sees there is strong demand for it and he will trust he can always resell it later for basically what he paid for it. So he bids and the price goes higher. Repeat as people look at the auction...the frame goes way over the reserve and beyond. The result is that the presence of other bids creates security that prompts bidders to value something higher than they might have done so if they didn't see other people were interested in it. In other words, the "value" of the frame was created by the market.