Posted By:
Fred CWow, a conundrum of sorts.
We all want to know that the Auction Houses are on the level.
- Do we need a third party auditing firm to perform this function?
- What happens if the third part auditing firm becomes part of the problem (I'm not saying Mears would take a pay off, but what if it were someone besides Mears).
- We all think the buyers premiums are ridiculous.
- The auditing company is going to have a charge for their services.
- Does this get passed on to the buyers (higher BPs?)
- Do we want the higher BPs?
- As mentioned, what prevents one or several people setting up shill accounts?
- What prevents a friend of a consignor, not related to the Auction House, from jacking up the bids?
- There are so many variables in the Auction House business. To think that one company can actually make a difference is a bit utopian in thought and concept.
The bottom line is that we, the members of this board, kind of police a lot of what goes on with the Auction Houses. There are so many examples of this that I wouldn't know where to start. I suppose one (and I don't want anyone to feel I'm singling anybody out or that I'm trying to open any old wounds) would be a certain Auction House in Colorado that didn't disclose some radical alterations done on a 19th century card. A lot of "issues" like this make it to the surface. We, as a collecting community, become more cognizant of the fact that there are "issues" that we need to dealt with and we can only hope that the offending parties learned their lessons.
I'd have to believe that the Auction Houses fear people with good memories. Like one of my best friends wife will tell you. I don't worry about my husband cheating, he's got a bad memory and he knows it. Bottom line, you can only hide/tell so many lies and then you lose your credibility.