As a NY & NJ barred attorney who lurks on this board quite a bit, I think a good case could be made against CC for "willful blindness." A good illustration of this doctrine is when someone hands you a brown paper bag that's stapled shut and says "drive this from NYC to X address in South Philly, and when you get there a man will give you 10,000 cash for a delivery fee."
you can't go to court and as a defense say "well, I didn't know what was in the bag- they told me it was peanuts!" You were willfully blind in that you had to have know (and the law will impute this knowledge to you) that something illegal HAD to be in that bag for you to get 10 K to make an hour's drive and drop it off.
Same for CC- they have to know by now that EVERYTHING from these consignors is fake since it gets 10% or less of what it would really be worth. Hell, look at the dozens of albums signed by all 4 Beatles that bring 250 bucks, which if real could do 50 -75 K at auction. I think there are less than 25 authentic signed (by all 4) beatles albums known to exist in the entire world.
Ditto for all the Josh Gibson autos and Rube Waddel, Mathewson etc.
I guess they never get sued civilly since apparently they give refunds readily to keep the heat off. Plus most of the stuff sold there is probably being buyed to "flip" at mall kiosks and flea markets etc, or on ebay.
I enjoy this site just to look at everyone's neat collections and such, but I'd never get into sports collecting based on what I've seen from reading this site and WhiteBetsy and Hauls of Shame etc. Fraud has literally consumed this hobby, to the point where it seems like any fun or pleasure has been sucked out entirely.
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