Two days ago a Notre Dame football program set a world record price. It was in rough shape and sold for $14,000... on ebay.
A few weeks ago a Louis Sockalexis team postcard popped up on ebay in a weird category with no mention of the ballplayer and it sold for the same as a highly publicized example from REA.
High end stuff is going to get bids and sell well regardless of the venue. Sometimes on ebay it does better because of the exposure. If he wanted to end it to get it graded then it might have been a good move or relist it with better info, but I think it is incorrect to simply assume stuff sells better at auction houses. I buy things from the big boys every single month that are terribly written up, not researched and lost in the catalogs and sell for a fraction of their true value.
Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't, but it is far from a foregone conclusion.
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