RR Auctions - University Archives

[Shoeless Moe]

Anyone familiar with these 2? I once noticed something that I take to be shady, but if anyone is more familiar with auction houses and the following scenerio, please chime in.

I was watching an item in RR Auctions, and when the bidding was over for the entire auction, that was that. I figured the item was sold as there were bids on it, and a price of about 300-400 dollars. Nowhere did I see Reserve Not Met or any minimum order. I noticed the exact same item on University Archives earlier in the week and offered them more for then it went in the auction, although I knew they had to be the ones consigning it as it was the exact same item. They intially told me the item was not available. Made sense since I saw it out in another auction house. Well they got back to me and said it is available and they would take my higher offer.

I found that very fishy. Is it possible there are hidden reserves on items in auction houses? Or were "they" the high bidder so it never really sold to anyone?

[Matt]

From your story, it's not clear when did auction 1 end and when did it go up in auction 2. Is it possible someone bought it and then consigned it very quickly?

[gnaz01]

Happens all the time. If you look at RR Auctions, John Reznikoff (president of University Archives) is one of their "authenticators", so it is possible that there could have been some odd bidding, etc.

For example, in RR's auction this month, you will see a Gehrig signed letter request from Willie Ritchie, Jr. (I know because I once owned this letter loooong ago) and it was in EAC Gallery's auction just last month and went for BIG money ($3000+ from what I remember), and, you guessed it, Reznikoff is an "authenticator" for EAC as well.

You do the math

[Shoeless Moe]

Matt - sorry I may not have been clear in my description. 1. University Achives I don't believe is an auction house but rather a seller of historic items, baseball included. 2. It was up on their site the same time RR Auctions had it up in an auction. So being fairly new I found it odd the same item could be in 2 places at once. But then I figured out UA "consigned" it in the RR auction.

But then again sorry to repeat, the item "sold". But then UA said they still could sell it to me, when I offered more then it went for in the auction. Of course I did not buy it but was just testing them at that point, and.......

GNAZ u have confirmed my suspicions. THANK YOU!

Thus FYI to all out there. Although not really Breaking News, but just beware at those places when bidding. U could get into a bidding war with Joe Shill.

[ctownboy]

I would contact the state Attorney General and also the FBI about this.

David