Do auction houses bid/buy their own coins?

I realized something weird with an Austrian auction house.

This coin here:


... there is buyers fee which is around 20%.

So, that Phocas coin was sold for 780 Euro.

But a bit later the auction house listed it on their own store here for 900 Euro:

https://www.vcoins.com/en/stores/nu...rike_and_great_centering/2322555/Default.aspx



And also this Justinian II:

... with buyers fee it would be 4200 Euro.

Again, this was also listed soon in their store for 4500 euro:

https://www.vcoins.com/en/stores/nu...tions_of_christ_on_coins/2322554/Default.aspx


Is this a normal practice among the auction houses? To bid or buy their own coins?

 

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Assuming these were consigned coins, they wouldn't have been property of the auction house. Maybe the AH thought they were going cheap enough that they could buy them and sell them higher at fixed prices?

 

They probably didn't meet their reserve price and were thus put on sale directly for the reserve price.