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Posted By: Rob

The result is usually that the flipper loses money and I've made money. Fact is that's it's tough to flip anything in vintage through buying from an auction house or Ebay with the expectation of quickly selling that item for a profit. My favorite example is where someone bought an 1888 Hall Imperial Cincinnati team cabinet on Ebay, then tried to sell it in a Lipset auction, where the realized price was $1000 less. Of course, the consignor could had bought that card back, eating Lipset's consignment fees, which would had been about $1000 as well.

The problem with the Leland sale is that the Kopec card was probably shilled in the Leland auction by the consignor. Of course, Leland can easily deny this takes place. Frankly, I believe the "great" prices realized by many of the auction houses is often the result of consignors bidding on their own items, effectively giving a "hidden" reserve. You can bet that Consignors buy back their high value items on a fairly regular basis in the large Auction House sales.

As Leon noted, you can bid or not on the Kopec card, but it will probably be shilled by the consignor. In each case, Leland's is collecting the fees.