How to lose your credibility in a hurry

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Posted By: Paul

A seller just listed a bunch of vintage cards on ebay in a live auction format. Most of the cards seem legit, but tossed in the middle of the group is this one:

http://cgi.liveauctions.ebay.com/1320A-1909-T206-Honus-Wagner-Baseball-Card-by-Piedmont_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQcategoryZ28270QQihZ015Q QitemZ250015375445QQrdZ1

Just in case you were legally blind and had some hope that the card might be authentic, the seller was kind enough to toss in an express disclaimer of authenticity. Of course, he still set the minimum bid at 300K.

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Posted By: peter ullman

dude...see the honus thread below (new wagner find) for more detail!

pete in portland...temporarily

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Posted By: Paul

Didn't realize it was the same one.

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Posted By: barrysloate

I just sent them an email and told them the ethical thing to do is to withdraw the card. The disclaimer is meaningless. You can't say it is being sold as is when you are estimating it in excess of half a million dollars. That implies it is real. If you thought it wasn't genuine your estimate would be more like fifty cents to a dollar.

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Posted By: edacra

Glancing through, it looks like a couple of the autographed items have some pretty ambitious bids as well. I don't see much reason for a beat up paperback book with 70 autographs to price out at their $3,000 estimate. I guess someone might get excited about the Gehrig and Ruth's widows signature in a well thumbed boook.

The cards have far more realistic opening bids at least - the auctioneer must be a Gemini.

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Posted By: Tom Boblitt

is patently fake.....

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Posted By: Richard Simon

The Gehrig is certainly crap,,, and its amazing how bad the quality of the scans is on the other auctions.
Gee,,, you would think they would put up some good scans, some of the autogs. look ok, but who can say for sure.

I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent.
Unknown author
--
We made a promise. We swore we'd always remember.
No retreat baby, no surrender.
The Boss

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Posted By: scott brockelman

These people came to light about 1-2 years ago when they sold a small group of W600's and had absolutely no idea what they had. Now they have suddenly became baseball card epxerts and know even less about what they have. If this card sells it will most certainly be the end of their auction ventures, as I doubt financially or physically they would hold up to the ensuing battle.

Perhaps they have been conned beyond their own realization and now cannot find a way out.

Scott

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Posted By: Anson

Yup, several of the autos are fakes. The Heilmann is very poor.

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Posted By: Brett

wasn't that wagner on ebay months ago?

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Posted By: Rob NYC

Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't the typegraph for "WAGNER, PITTSBURGH" all wrong?

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Posted By: NickM

I'm familiar with recent pricing on PSA graded P2 pins, and most of his are selling below what other eBay sellers are getting - often far below. He also shows some low prices on T-206s - and most of the autographed HOFer plaques are way below market price for a genuine auto on the long-deceased players (granted that I don't have sufficient expertise to readily recognize fakes on many of these, and didn't put in the time to evaluate signatures carefully on any).

I think some of his consignors will be very upset - his disgusting effort to make money off the fake Wagner probably severely harmed all of their auctions. I know I consciously chose not to register and bid on any P2s because of his lack of ethics.

I wouldn't be surprised if legitimate sellers stop consigning to him and his future auctions consist of basically only his own material plus consigned fakes.