Auction Houses selling their own stuff

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Posted By: Hal Lewis

In reading the various threads from the different auction houses, it seems as if the prevailing thought is:

"If you trust us enough to think that we are not shilling up the bidding on consigned items, then you should trust us enough to know that we would not do it on our own items."

BUT... there is one BIG problem with this school of thought that clearly renders it untrue and illogical.

There is NO WAY that an Auction House can "shill bid" on a CONSIGNED item without risking the chance that they will get stuck having to buy it themselves in the end.

In other words, if an Auctioneer owns a card and shill bids the card up, NOBODY will ever know if the auction ends without any REAL person having bought the card.

A real bidder may have bid $5,000... and the auctioneer may have bid $6,000 to try and coax a bid of $7,000 from the real bidder... but if the real bidder does NOT bid again, then the auction ends and the auctioneer just keeps his card to sell again later.

On a CONSIGNED item, there is a REAL CONSIGNOR out there who is fully expecting to receive $6,000 for his card when the auction is over. If the auctioneer was shilling and the real bidder never came back into the fight... then the auctioneer would have to either BUY the card for $6,000 or try to make up the BS story about the "high bidder backed out of the deal."

Surely NOBODY out there is still falling for that type of story, are they? The old "EBay second chance" type of crap?

SO... it is certainly a LOT EASIER and a LOT LESS DETECTABLE for auction houses to shill bid on their OWN items... and therefore I agree with everyone who thinks that FULL DISCLOSURE (even if just an asterik) is the ONLY way to go.