Have you ever withheld info about an item?

[Runscott]

I once sold a tintype of a baseball player on eBay. The player didn't have a bat, glove or anything else related to baseball, other than the uniform. A year after the sale I discovered what team he played for (his uniform was unique) through an odd accidental circumstance. I contacted the buyer and asked him if he would be interested in selling it. If he had said "no", I planned to give him the new information, but he said "no" with a rude emphasis, so I kept the information to myself, and have done so for fifteen years.

A year or so ago a super-rare item came up at auction. It was an item that was right in my collecting wheel-house - pretty much a 'holy grail'. It was mis-described by a major auction house and I was sure I could get it at a great deal, brag about it for a while, then put it in a safe deposit box. Again, an odd circumstance gave me information about the item that it was very, very unlikely that anyone else would have. Possible, but highly improbable. This was due to the weird esoteric research that I do for my baseball history articles.

Well, another bidder had other ideas. All night we bid - going down to the 30 minute wire each time. We bid the item up to north of $12k (the AH had it predicted at $2K, which would have been right if their description were accurate). Sometime early in the morning I gave up; still, I was dying to talk about the item the morning after the auction, but I felt like it would show up again at auction someday, possibly again misdescribed, and I would have another shot at it. Hasn't happened - in fact; no one ever mentioned the item in any discussion forums. So I've kept my mouth shut, still hoping.

Any other stories like the above?

[Scott Garner]

Hey Scott,
I hope you are well & interesting topic.

FYI, I typically do not share esoteric info about a scarce item that I'm interested in adding to my collection until I have done so. I might do it with a close collector friend, but certainly not a dealer.
Some of my net54 posts reveal info that I have been holding onto, sometimes literally for decades from research that I have done in the past.

There's no doubt that storing facts that are not commonly known can allow you to buy something really scarce at a reasonable price, which is pretty great and fun IMHO.
I hope you would all agree that as collectors we certainly overpay at times for scarce items that we are looking for.
I'm merely hoping to balance these purchases off with a few bargains...

[cfhofer]

Scott,

It depends for me. If a non-sports eBay seller is completely clueless on what they have I will contact them. I won't take advantage of their lack of knowledge on sports memorabilia. Typically I'll also make a very generous offer to change the auction to a private BIN. If it's a sports dealer/auction house I don't say anything. They should know better.

Mark

[batsballsbases]

I have stopped giving out any information anymore. Some of my reasons are because of this forum... My feeling is this way why should I give out any information that took me 30 to 40 years to gather and have someone here use that to profit from and it only took them 2 minutes to find out... My 2 cents.

[mcgwirecom]

Goldin had a Musial signed ball in their last auction that he had written hit # 3431 on. They didn't list it as anything but that. With a day or two left I emailed them to let them know he passed Wagner for the NL hit leader with that hit. I got no repsonse but they did edit the description to say that but not the title. I think it went cheap because of that. It was started at $1500 but had no bids until the edit. Sold for $2640 with the BP.

[murphusa]

Auction House, no they will not pay you for the additional info even though it may mean more to them. Take advantage of your hard work and time.

In your original question the same. Educating yourself should be for your advantage