[Exhibitman]

Like I said, legal or illegal. The rest is conversation.

It was illegal for Mastro and his collaborators and the consignors who asked their friends to run up bids to do what they did. Apparently it is not illegal in Texas for Heritage consignors to bid on their own stuff. You do business in a jurisdiction you take the good and the bad laws. If you don't like IL rules (or eBay rules based in CA law) because you want to bid on your own items sell your stuff in TX, but don't cheat in IL and try to argue it is ok because someone else did something similar where it is legal. That's like saying you can have two wives in USA because it is ok in Saudi Arabia.

Ok bad example because you'd clearly be mentally ill if you wanted another wife in this country...