Posted By:
Hal LewisI recently consigned items to Mastro in their internet auctions, and I can assure you that I was not allowed to bid on them.
As someone pointed out, a few of them were VERY LOW and I would have been better off to buy them back myself if I could have.
I was almost crying when my three rare 1947 Tip Top rookie cards went for like $125 or something terrible.
I guess some of you are right in that I could have had some other board member bid on the cards for me, but short of utilizing lie detectors, I think that could happen at ANY auction.
I see the point about "Top All" bids, and I agree 100% that an auction house should be SHUT DOWN if they are "peeking" at the max bids and then driving them all the way up themselves... but it sounds like the claim is that the SELLERS are doing this, not the auction house.
I did win something for far less than my "Max Bid" in the last Mastro auction, so I don't think they're doing it.
But I guess actually I was just lucky that the consignor of that item was too honest to have one of his friends driving the price up for him.