Lew Lipset auction

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Posted By: leon

How did ya'll do? What do you think about the prices? I went 0 for 5.....I wanted to bid on 1 other item but guess I didn't confirm my bid earlier ao it didn't take. My fault....such is life. I need to be more careful . I thought the prices were pretty strong. The M117 went for over double what I paid for mine a few years ago. regards

edited typo

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Posted By: Eric

I bid on two auctions... won the following one...

Lot 26. 5 N172 Old Judge Cards including two graded.
Willie Kuehne, Pittsburgh (SGC 50 VG/EX 4)
Jersey Bakley, Cleveland (SGC 40 VG 3)
Ed McKean, Cleveland (vg, couple small spots of album remains on rear)
Lyons, Athletics (very goos, stain on front and rear)
Mulvey, Phila. (ex front, some paste remains on rear)

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Posted By: rob

Won a t213-3 with the rare factory 8 overprint. My stockpiling continues...

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Posted By: Paul

I made what I thought was a serious attempt for the Cobb Postcard, but no go. I missed the Maple Crispettes also.

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Posted By: Tony Andrea

Won lot #97.

Sgc-50 E90-1 Willie Keeler (red portrait variation)

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Posted By: Joe D.

I lost out on 3 cards.

Lew's auction had one of those "I gotta have it cards" that I was ready to go very strong on -
and then another auction crossed my path (still live) - and I decided that was an even bigger "gotta have it".

So I switched my bidding focus to the still live auction.

Funny how that happens.

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Posted By: bill latzko

I'm not complaining since I have one in a psa 7,and I know it's a scarce card, but the m116 sporting life Amby McConnell, chicago, in an sgc 60 went for $30,000 with buyers premium!!!
Also, the group of 31 M116's ex+-ex.mt (RAW!)went for over $1000.00 EACH. I realize they have the 300 series backs but am I missing something here??

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Posted By: Jason Duncan

I bid strong after the E90-1 SPeaker, Cobb, Mathewson, Wagner, and Young but come up short on all. I did get the T227 near set, the NRMT Exhibit set, and a Play Ball near set. The e90-1s seemed to go high.


Jason

Edited for grammer

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Posted By: Steve Murray

No seriously, I lost out all around. Congrats to you winners. I too thought the prices were strong.

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Posted By: Lee

Looks like I won the BL 460, lot #49:



I think it went for a very reasonable price, even with all the back damage.

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Posted By: Max Weder

Lost out on my bids. (but if anyone wants to part with a couple of the Sporting Life "How The ... won the world's championship", let me know)

Although I couldn't get a bid in on this before it soared beyond my price range, I thought this lot was very cool, with the W600 ephemera



Max

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Posted By: Brian McQueen

I brought the cabal back for one more run at lot #107 - 67 e90-1s. The lot went for less than what I figured it would go for and I was very pleased with the result. This will be a nice way to pick up a bunch of the tough, underrated commons all at once.

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Posted By: dstudeba

I lost out on both SF Hess Creoles. If anyone here got the trimmed version I would love to ask you a question. (Don't worry you already beat me, I am not going to try to buy it from you )

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Posted By: Andrew S.

"I'm not complaining since I have one in a psa 7,and I know it's a scarce card, but the m116 sporting life Amby McConnell, chicago, in an sgc 60 went for $30,000 with buyers premium!!! Also, the group of 31 M116's ex+-ex.mt (RAW!)went for over $1000.00 EACH. I realize they have the 300 series backs but am I missing something here??"

Bill, prices lately on the Sporting Life cards have been going through the roof on raw stuff. I predict that a raw m116 common in near mint will eventually surpass that of a T206 common in the same condition.

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Posted By: Rob Dewolf

I thought I made a strong play for Lot 47, the felts of Mathewson and Lajoie. They sold for nearly $2,300 with the juice. My hope is that the buyer was after the Mathewson and makes the Lajoie available. (Hint, hint if the winner is reading this. My mailbox awaits your e-mail.)

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Posted By: Matt

Interesting... Off-line several board members advised me not to bid on anything from Lipsett due to issues that range from post-auction-end shill-bidding to trimming raw cards, but I see here many board members have no problems bidding on his auction whatsoever.

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Posted By: Jason L

are they the same Board members?!?!?

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Posted By: James Feagin

Matt,

The same folks who blast companies like Mastro for various practices are the same who have no qualms with dropping six figures on a card "they must have."

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Posted By: Matt

Jason - no different members - it was actually a chat discussion one night this apst week, and everyone in the chat (3 or 4 besides me) all recommended staying away.

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Posted By: Steve Murray

I suspect that it was YOU who was being shilled!!! I've never heard any of the allegations you mention and have known Lew for over 20 years. I've won things and never had a suspicion of wrongdoing with any of his auctions. (Tough man to deal with, admittedly, but seemingly honest). JMHO

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Posted By: Matt

I was being shilled? I've never bid on any of his stuff. I was shown 2 threads - one from this board and one from another (unfortunately, the chat applet doesn't give a mechanism for saving the chat, so the links are gone) about the experiences that poeple had that I referenced. I'm not out to give the guy a name one way or the other, I'm just trying to gather information, and I'm noting that seemingly everyone in this thread has 0 problem bidding on his stuff, when I got the exact opposite impression from members earlier this week.

I don't need to defend whether the allegations are true or not, because I'm not making those allegations. I went into the chat and asked if anyone was bidding on his stuff and the response was that they would never bid on his stuff for the aforementioned reasons.

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Posted By: MVSNYC

Lee- great pick-up! that BL 460 was a steal, even in that condition...

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Posted By: scott brockelman

I had some of the schedules, but this will make the run complete, the W600 literature was a must have.

The lot went slightly stronger than I thought with a bidding flurry about 6:00 but a hefty maximum bid stood the test of time with room to spare.

Scott

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Posted By: Matt

found one of the threads referenced:

http://www.network54.com/Forum/526604/thread/1192947966/last-1193355794/Lew+Lipset+Auction+---%3E%3B+N86+Set+-+TRIMMED!-!-

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Posted By: Tony Andrea

Hi Matt -
What makes you believe you were shilled. I won 1 lot by myself
and two others with some partners. All three were won far below
our max bids with one being won at almost half of what our max
bid was set at. My experience with Lew has always been a good one.

Tony

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Posted By: Jim VB

Matt,

I never do chat rooms, but there was a discussion about Lew and this auction on the non-sports board last week.

I've never had anything but excellent dealings with Lew, but someone over there was accusing him of selling trimmed cards. I'm not sure how you tell from a catalog picture, or even a computer scan, but one guy was adamant.

I take all such discussions as, potentially, attempts to reduce competition.

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Posted By: Matt

"Hi Matt -
What makes you believe you were shilled."

I said no such thing.

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Posted By: leon

The inference that you were shilled is that some folks will think that others will say not to bid so they can win things cheaper....that is the "shill" being spoken about...not anything to do with the auction itself....just a little clarification here. I have always had good dealings/conversations with Lew and some of my best stuff has come from him.....regards

edited grammar

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Posted By: Steve Murray

Jim VB says "I take all such discussions as, potentially, attempts to reduce competition."

And that's what I mean when I say maybe it was YOU being shilled.

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Posted By: Matt

Certainly I had me eyes open to that possibility when people suggested to stay away, but as I mentioned, they referred me to two threads about serious problems (the first I posted above, but the second is lost). That's what gave their cry some credence in my eyes.

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Posted By: Jeff Williams

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Posted By: ockday

Having dealt with Lew for 20 years, I can say he's a crappy grader BUT definitely an honest dealer.
Shill bidding or any other shady practices are not something to worry about with Lew.

No baseball wins but I managed to win 2 1933 OPC hockey sets last night.

Alan

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Posted By: Hank Levy

I've dealt with Lew since the mid 1980's and I have found his honesty and integrity to be of the highest caliber.

Hank

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Posted By: Bob

I agree with Alan. Lew is a grumpy curmudgeon but an honest one.

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Posted By: Matt

What about the cards that appear trimmed in the thread I linked above? I don't know anything about size variance of those cards, but someone who has put together a near set agreed that the cards look trimmed.

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Posted By: MVSNYC

as far as i am concerned and from what i have heard, Lew Lipset is an honest man and a wealth of knowledge (see his encyclopidias on vintage baseball cards)...

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Posted By: Rob Dewolf

Take the time to actually closely read Lew's catalogs and you'll find references to cards that are trimmed, have had marks erased, etc. Granted, mentioning such imperfections doesn't ensure that all imperfections are always noted, but it seems to me that Lew makes a point to mention cards he knows are trimmed.

He also questions graded cards that have come backed trimmed if he thinks it's a bad grade. From most people I would take these protests with a grain of salt. But my guess is Lew probably has forgotten more about many vintage cards and sets that many "professional" graders will ever know.

As for his honesty, his is one of the few auctions of which I wouldn't think twice about leaving a ceiling bid.

And yes, in my first dealings with Lew, I also got my head bit off once or twice.

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Posted By: Tom Boblitt

but I did agree that from the scan's only, the N86 Dukes Scenes of Perilous Occupations cards did not look uniform. OBVIOUSLY, from just a scan it is difficult to tell but Lew states that there are no returns based on 3rd party grading....so.....people have to determine for themselves on that.

To qualify the statements above, I've bought MANY times from Lew's auctions and don't remember a single time that I've had a problem. I didn't plan on bidding on the N86's as I have a set already but there doesn't seem to be much variation in the sizing of the set as far as I've seen. ALWAYS possible that they are okay and again from the scan it's difficult to tell.



p.s. a simple highlight, copy, paste operation will save chatroom info.....

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Posted By: Jason

Matt-


Have you had any PERSONAL experience with Lipset? Could you be speaking from heresay? I would reccommend trying him out and making your own conclusions.

Jason

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Posted By: Matt

Jason - did I make any accusations or state any personal experience? I'm not sure why people are having trouble following this, I NEVER claimed I was shilled, I NEVER claimed I had a bad experience. Before I bid thousands of dollars on something I don't think it's unreasonable to gather other's experiences.

Tom - if I thought it significant at the time, I would have saved the info, but who saves every chat transcript from public forums? Without fail, the consensus in the room was that Lipset was a problem and therefore I was going to take their advice and stay away; now I see this thread and apparently that is not consensus, but the chat with the links is long gone; although I did dig one up (listed above).

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Posted By: Robert

edited due to bad email address and controversial issue...post your full name and good email addy and have at it- moderator dude....(nothing personal)

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Posted By: Rob Dewolf

Matt, you say you're looking "to gather other's experiences."

Before you made your post about "board members" previously advising you to stay away from Lew Lipset's auctions because of trimmed cards and shilling, you no doubt saw the number of posts today from board members who bid on multiple lots in last night's auction. My guess is those collectors have no qualms bidding. My guess is you also came to that conclusion.

So what was your post really designed to do? You yourself wrote, "I see here many board members have no problems bidding on his auction whatsoever."

Are you hoping some of "board members" who previously advised you to stay away will post their stories of shilling and the auctioning of trimmed cards?

It seems to me that you were able "to gather other's experiences" without posting about supposed shill bidding of which I'm guessing you have no proof.

Regardless, here's hoping you're learning a lot before you "bid thousands of dollars on something."

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Posted By: boxingcardman

The issue was beaten to death in another thread; stop bayoneting the dead!

I was shut out as usuaul; the prices in Lew's auction were very robust. I was stunned at how high the PC backed Exhibits went; over $20,000 for the full run, not including any of the 4 on 1s (a partial group of those pulled in a few thousand more). Plus vig. Wow. The PCL short set was a comparative bargain at under $9k. All the Exhibit prices were very strong; I could not believe how hi the group of boxers went, esp. in what looked like low grades. Nice to see them finally getting some respect.

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Posted By: Larry

edited....need full name and good email address to give harsh personal statements.....moderator dude...

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Posted By: Matt

Rob - I'll back down - I have no ulterior motive. I guess the reason I posted was to find out if those posting here were aware of the issues raised in that other thread.
thanks!

Larry - please contact me regarding that ebay ID - obviously 70 characters of feedback isn't enough to explain what happened there.

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Posted By: Bob

Back to cards
I, for one, am thrilled to see the prices obtained by the M116 Sporting Life cards (having completed the set). I said 3 years ago that this set had huge wiggle room and that ALL the cards in the set were underpriced. I think they are still underpriced but they are slowly catching up. Maybe collectors are finally recognizing the scarcity, the simple beauty of the cards and the fact that they are an alternative to the nutso prices affecting caramels right now...

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Posted By: quan

tbob my hesitation with the m116s is there are so much inconsistencies with their sizing that's it's hard to judge whether they left the factory like that or it was trimmed later on. sometime you get a reall short m116 and it's perfectly fine while an oversized card might've been trimmed. are there any unique characteristics in the m116 set that we should be looking for?

lew's pricings were stronger than i expected and i'm thinking i was runner-up to a board member on the e90-1 walsh?

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Posted By: leon

I agree with you on the M116 sizing differences. They are so "all over the board" I am reluctant to buy them many times.....regards

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Posted By: Jeff Williams

This could have been a fun thread, however, the continous personal attacks on various individuals, auctions, etc. seem to kill most topics. Lets try to keep on topic and have fun with collecting!

Jeff

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Posted By: fkw

I noticed those ugly 1912 Felt Cards (lot #47 Lajoie & Mathewson) finally got some respect value wise. It doesnt get any rarer. I see one every 2-3 years at best.