auctioneers with little or no info on what they are selling

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Posted By: warshawlaw 

I just had an interesting discussion with Sotheby's on a couple of their boxing card lots presently listed on ebay and closing today. The items I was interested in are ticketed over $2k but are framed. Naturally, I wanted to know the details on the mounting to decide whether the items were likely to be damaged or whether they had perhaps been conservation-framed in a manner that might make their removal possible. Here is the response I got:

"This group of cards is framed so I can't tell you much. The cards appear quite clean from the front. These originated from a collector named Duke Hott who sold his collection in 1995. I cataloged that sale and saw a lot of his stuff after it was removed from the frames. Based on what I saw my guess would be these cards are taped from the reverse against the mount. The front would not be affected, but the backs probably are. I hope this is of help to you."

Come on, guys, $2k for cards and you can't even tell me whether they are near mint or VG??? In my view a totally unprofessional way to sell and damaging as heck to the seller. I have to assume they are vg at best and therefore have to bid (or not bid in this case) accordingly.

Another pet peeve: incomplete descriptions. There are 12 cards in the lot--the auctioneer couldn't be bothered to list all 12. This is ridiculous. You're asking nearly $200 a card and I have to call you to find out who is in the lot?

I don't think I'll be using Sotheby's.