Posted By:
Troy R. KinunenJust wanted to clarify some issues with respect to the cap that I bid on.
1. With respect to my user I.D. I am thebionicbigfoot. It is my personal email address and the only one I bid on. Dave Bushing does not have access to my bidding I.D. and he does his own bidding under dbushing1. We do both tend to bid on similar items, especially in the game used category. But if you check my completed history, you will see that I bid on a myriad of subject matter.
2. With respects to "undisclosed conflict of interest", this is not the case with MEARS or our authenticators. Since October 20th, 2005, we have voluntarily disclosed which items we own that we have also provided an opinion on when consigning an item to an auction house. These items were posted on the section prominently displayed as "our items at auction". This feature was free to any interested party and we did not make this a portion of our members section. Although some may feel this is still a "conflict of interest", it cannot be categorized as an "undisclosed conflict of interest."
3. With respect to Aaron's statement, "If there were more collector awareness, then I think there would be more of an outcry. But MEARS doesn't broadcast the idea that they are out their buying, authenticating and selling."
For the calendar year 2007, MEARS only consigned 5 items to auction. All 5 were posted publicly on our website. Also, all 5 items were auctioned early in the year and consigned during the end of 2006. As of January 1st, 2007, MEARS launched a site titled: Bushing & Kinunen MEARS For Sale. The section was listed prominetely at the bottom of our website. Within the text of each item for sale, there is a title bar which reads, "Ownership: Bushing & Kinunen". This is the second bit of information found with each lot description.
I think that by titling the section of the for sale site as "Bushing & Kinunen MEARS for Sale" we have done about as much broadcasting of our for sale site as possible while telling everybody who owned the items. The section itself is highlited in red and found at the bottom of our webpage. In addition, when an item sells, it is archived in a section titled "Archives" . This section is found on the bottom left margin of our for sale site.
Each and every item is archived permanently for all interested parties to view. You do not have to be a member to see what we have sold, who owned it, and what we said about each sold item. The reason for doing so it to allow collectors to use this feature as a research tool for comparing their own items, and to make us accountable for what we said about an item while selling it.
Collectors do not have to agree with our policy of authenticating and buying and selling of sports memorabilia. But, with a MEARS items for sale, you will know exactly who owned it and how it was described and graded. If you like the item, please make your purchase. If you do not like the policy, you cannot say that you did not know it was owned by Bushing or Kinunen.
With respects to the cap I bid on, here is my post dated September 3rd, 2007 which can be found on our website. Here is the link.
http://www.network54.com/Forum/427155/message/1188883384/rare+original+1901+Detroit+Tigers+baseball+cap+woo l
I will not be responding directly to any additional questions on this site, but will answer any and all questions posted on the MEARS bulletin board. As per our bulletin board policy, you must include a valid email address and both first and last name.
Sincerley,
Troy R. Kinunen
MEARS
troy@mearsonline.com