Curt, check the bid history again. Brandon DID bid on the ball, and was the underbidder. As he said, he put in a healthy bid in an attempt to keep anyone else from being stuck with the ball. As of midnight the night before, he was $100 over the next highest bidder, and remained the high bidder until Wit beat him out with a snipe that went off 3 seconds before the auction ended. All of that can be seen just looking at the bid history.

Now why in the world would someone wanting to sell a fake ball bid on his own ball in that way? And before anyone suggests it, this is clearly not shill bidding. Nobody in their right mind attempts to run up the bid price by throwing down a bid that would triple the highest bid showing at that point. There were no bid retractions, no nibbling at the bids to drive the price up, really no reason to think that it was anything other than what Brandon says: an attempt to keep an unthinking friend/ex-partner from committing fraud upon an unsuspecting buyer.

And keep in mind that this single bid, which seemed to safely be holding as the high bid right up until the end, was placed nearly 14 hours before post #1 in this thread. So it's not a case of "the heat is on, I better pull this before I get caught."

Also, Brett asked why he didn't catch the ball the first time it was listed. Go back and check that listing (item # 290923317483), and you will see that it was up for less than 24 hours before the seller ended it early (listed as a Buy It Now on May 28 at 13:11 and ended early May 29 at 11:48, then re-listed 4 minutes later at Auction at 11:52). I don't know what Brett's habits are when it comes to searching eBay, but even for the categories that I scour diligently, there are plenty of times that I am distracted for a day or more and items slip by me. I don't find it so implausible that an item that was up for less than 24 hours might escape anyone's notice.

I say all this based just on the evidence visible in the listing and bid history on eBay, which anyone can check. It's not supposition based on whether the pronoun he used was singular or plural or any other grammar Brandon used. Keep in mind that he was under a great deal of pressure at the time, and responding as quickly as possible. His grammar has never been perfect, (better than some who post here, but still not perfect, sorry Brandon :o ), and it's not likely that he would stop and use grammar check before hitting "submit."

Aside from that, I can say from personal experience that I have had numerous dealings with Brandon over the last year or so, and there have been many many times where he could have easily taken advantage of me for many times the amount of money involved in this transaction. In all of my dealings with him, I have never gotten any sense of anything underhanded going on with him, and he has never failed to provide help or information when called upon.

And it's not just me, or even a select few, that he has helped. He has provided help and advice regarding ball identification and dating here on the boards numerous times, to anyone who asked, and does so in a definitive manner, showing examples and giving detailed responses where appropriate so that you don't have to just "take his word for it as the expert." You can actually go and do your own independent research and arrive at the same assessments that he presents. It's just that most of us (often myself included) are too lazy to put in the hours of research necessary to develop our own expertise. It's much easier to just yell, "Hey Brandon," get a free quick opinion, maybe throw him a "thanks" and then move on.

I don't have a problem with people asking questions about anything, and this transaction certainly deserved the red flag originally raised. The rate at which it went from simply asking a question to completely trashing a valued board member, his reputation, his expertise, and his book (which hasn't even come out yet!), all the while rejecting all attempts to answer the rapid-fire questions being leveled at him and completely ignoring his request to be allowed time to personally deal with the fiasco his friend created, is nothing short of shameful. Bottom line is, I daresay we all have had friends who did something stupid at some point without thinking how it would affect us. That in this case, that the friend is also an ex-business partner, and that neither of them thought to cancel all the old eBay and Paypal accounts and start fresh with their separate ventures, is especially unfortunate as it gives rise to this kind of speculation. Having stupid friends isn't criminal though. It's hard enough to keep intelligent friends in line. Idiots are impossible, and I'm not going to kick a guy in the nuts because his (now ex-)friend proved to be a dishonest moron. :eek:

Lance F!ttro

Agree with Dan, that proof of seller should be disclosed. Also want to add the the foul language does not lend itself to the credibility (even if all stated is true).

Another question for Brandon, his ebay account Historyofthebaseball was set up in the fall of 2012, surely he that wasn't his 1st ebay account, he's been buying vintage balls for years, so what is the account you had prior to HOTBB?

And until dim-WIT produces a receipt, and please don't doctor it (your specialty, oh wait no, that's balls, wait, I'm confused who am I talking about here Wit, B, or mystery friend, I don't know starting to get confused.)

And with 3 friends involved here, buyer seller reseller, seems like there could have been a good chance these may have been shill bids. If B knows the seller why does he need to place a bid.....and $300 isn't very large for a guy who has paid thousands for balls on ebay. Why doesn't he tell him to take it down, no he places a bid on the ball?????? Why not out him here and let everyone know in advance not to bid.

One of the prior eBay id's of the seller in question was pastimebaseballs_com. Before that, the eBay id was brandongrun. You can clearly see this in Dan's earlier post. Now, take a look at the threads Paul references in his post above. Here are links;

http://www.net54baseball.com/showthr...ebaseballs.com

http://www.net54baseball.com/showthr...ebaseballs.com


Jerry F!cch!

I mean what are the odds of being outbid on a ball u owned but was given to a friend after it was doctored, then bidding on it, then losing to another friend, with all the other collectors in the country out there, and then the bidder who won is willing to insult and swear to defend the underbidder/previous owner/doctorer of the ball.

And our 2 time poster Wit also placed the 1st bid in that auction, along with the winning one, ya know to get the bidding going.......yah uhhhh huh.

Where did Brandon write that he bid on the ball?

This speaks volumes... Wow :eek:

My apologies, Curt, I misspoke when I wrote "As he said." I figured that out early on after seeing the original post from looking the bid history and a quick check of the buyers I knew had an interest in high-end balls. Reading back over what Brandon wrote, I see that he never specifically stated that he had bid on the ball. You can just mentally cross out "as he said" in my post above.

So he never said this on here, so u obviously talked to him privately, sounds like just a cover story for shill bidding, I could be wrong though, but sure sounds like it. 2 friends who know each placing bids on yet a 3rd friends baseball. No that couldn't be fishy.

Paul, please read my post above again. Everything I said regarding the bidding can be found in the bid history if you don't allow your paranoia to taint what you can see there.

No, it can not be found in the bid history, where in there does it say this:

"he put in a healthy bid in an attempt to keep anyone else from being stuck with the ball."

U said that, that's not in the bid history, in the bid history are 2 friends bidding on a 3rd friends ball.

Can you kindly explain how the scenario you are presenting benefits any of the 3 friends you are supposing are running up the bids on each other? I'm really not understanding how that makes any sense. (no sarcasm to be read there - I really don't understand that scenario)

Agreed! It all appears to be a big plot to... get higher fees for ebay!

Absolutely!! Who in their right mind would place a low bid on an item early, not only to watch the item, but to make sure the seller knows somebody is interested, only to go back at the very end and put their REAL bid in? You know, like sniping??

Seriously Paul? You've never done this? What's with the witch hunt??

Ken

Perez, if my vernacular offends, this isn't church or Sunday school. If the shoe fits, wear it. If it doesn't, ignore it. It doesn't disprove any of what I say.

Clueless Moe, I have met Brandon twice. I wanted to help with the book and perhaps to show off. As already I own two red/beige Frick balls and know their scarity, I wanted this one also. I consider him a friend, as I previously stated.

I've never met the seller. To suggest that I'm some part of a Holy Trinity of Baseball doctoring is laughable. You are using coincidence as evidence in your claims. Produce evidence, or STFU. You are lobbing grenades where they don't need to go. So, loosen the foil hat up a bit.

It's interesting to see the following quoted:

http://www.net54baseball.com/showthr...ebaseballs.com

http://www.net54baseball.com/showthr...ebaseballs.com


Jerry F!cch![/QUOTE]

as I started a thread on Big League Baseballs long ago about this subject

http://forum.bigleaguebaseballs.com/....php?f=3&t=146


I don't have to produce a damn thing. I attempted to buy a baseball. Brandon had a guess that it was me who won the ball. He was correct. Brandon has his stance about protecting whomever this guy is. Why, I don't know. I told him my thoughts and its his name on the coals. It's not my job to protect Brandon. He's a big boy. He has this project going on and doesn't need the negative connections.

Witster

I'm not seeking witches, just the truth. eBay bidding aside, I'd like you all to take a second to visit http://archive.org - if you've never been there, it's a great resource for many different things, including viewing old webpages.

On the first page type in the web address pastimebaseballs.com

You will see that it has crawled the site 6 times. If you view one of the views from 2010 or 2011 you will see the list of baseballs, etc they reproduce, etc.

Click on the 2013 portion of the timeline and it brings you up to date with what the site has been changed to - interesting.

Easy.....u put a ball on ebay, u have someone u know place a bid to get the bidding going......u kinda have an idea what the ball will go for, next friend places a bid as well, so u have 2 separate IDs bidding to make it look like people are actually bidding on the item, however no one else is still bidding, and u want to sell the ball for a certain price, u place another bid at the end in hopes someone else who is not in on the scam also bids, if they do, u sold the ball for $400 rather than $100, cuz the middle bids are all dummy bids. If one of the friends wins the ball, no loss u can just cancel the transaction, like was done here. The transaction was conveniently cancelled.

That could very well have happened as well, possible, but what are the odds of with all the vintage ball collectors out there, the seller, the winner and the underbidder(who "sold" the ball to the seller) all know each other? When was the last time u saw that happen?

You don't "have" to produce a damn thing, but if u did it would shut all the non-believers up. So u can continue to make it look shady or u could put an end to it.

I HOPE I win the lottery!!

Good LORD!!! All this over a $300 ball??? I would hope that everyone has better things to do :confused:

The price of the ball has ZERO to do with this situation IMO....this is the expert in the field, the go to guy for antique baseballs involved in some way with a seller of fake baseballs. What that relationship is is apparently going to be up for debate because Brandon refuses to out the scam artist.

Here is an outsiders opinion. First of all, please watch the F bombs, they and other x rated words will be edited out. As long as your name is by your post please say whatever you want to otherwise.

First of all I have a bit of hard time going all the way back for years and looking at things that happened then. For the most current situation I am going to stick to Brandon's side right now, from what I have read. I can't get around the fact a very respected board member, and someone who is always helping people and coming out with an important book, is going to throw it all away over a $300 ball. It would be analogous to me throwing away what credibility I have built over my time in the hobby on a $300 fake type card. I have cards I have probably paid that much tax on. If it came to my cred I would easily give anyone $500 to not tarnish it. I think Brandon would probably do the same thing. I can't explain every single bid from the last 2-3 yrs but I just fall on the side of Bandon at this point. Just my 2 cents.....

Eloquence aside, THIS is the point I was trying to derive at. Sorry Dan, didn't mean to imply otherwise, it has been a LOOOOOOONG work week for me :o

I apologize for not being clearer in my earlier post but when you follow the steps below, you will find that it will point you to the historyofthebaseball website. For some reason, there is a direct correlation between the former pastimebaseballs.com website and the current historyofthebaseball website.

I don't particularly think the amount of vintage ball collectors is all that huge.

I collect game used bats. I have bid on items from sellers I've known and lost out to collectors I've known quite often. Same with autographs.

More often than not I am competing with pretty good hobby friends on things I want. And many times if we were to look at the bidders of an item, I would probably know every single one of them,...even if there are 5+ different bidders. Just look on the card side. I went head to head in the last month with Wonka and Peter Ullmands on cards we all wanted. If someone were bidding against 3-4 guys that are good hobby friends I would find it very normal. I would almost think it abnormal if some of my friends weren't bidding on the same cards I was....And my guess is that the baseballs hobby is smaller than the card hobby.

but....did u ever buy one, switch the name of the player on the bat, sell it to a friend, who then sells it as an original, then place a bid on it, then be outbid by another friend, then call the winning bidder, have them cancel the transaction with the seller who they have used as their account or paypal or something in the past, yet this "friend" who was over at your house, refuses to answer the phone, that you sold to him and bid on, so the winning bidder "who u have had battles with trying to win vintage baseballs" with gets contacted believes the underbidders story that its a fake all within 2 hours of the auction ending, rather than posting a comment on this board outing the fake, like we often do here to help out our fellow collectors into not getting duped, but making no mention of this auction, that oddly enough Brandon stumbled on, but doesn't try to get him to cancel the auction when he first noticed it, but after the sale is complete.

Nope, done none of that. Therefore, we should stop posting and march over to Brandon's house and shoot him.


Have you ever been in the middle of a situation where you looked bad but knew you had done nothing wrong? And it took time and effort to sort it all out? And people you thought were your friends turned on you? Isn't it possible that this is what's happening to Brandon??

I don't know what your day job is, but if there's ever an opening for judge, jury, and executioner, you should apply. Someone who sees things so clearly and appears to know everything would be great in that position.

Ken

Helpful Hint: if you do apply, on your resume, actually spell out the word "you." It makes people think you graduated High School.

So...
 

So if Wit won't produce the order details, can Brandon at least explain why he placed a bid on a ball he thought was fake a day b4 the auction ended, and if his thinking as was mentioned was so that no one else would win it, 1. why $300, that surely doesn't guarantee no one else wins it, place it at $1,000 since u know u are not going to pay it, then yes that way it makes it believeable. $400 "won" it. So $300 obviously wasn't an attempt to win it.

And 2. since your bid was placed the day b4 the auction ended, why do you not post a comment about a fake baseball out on Ebay. You are the expert, don't u like helping fellow collectors into not being duped. A comment would have ensured no one her would bid on it.

No comments until after it was outed.

If that can be explained I'll walk away and retract my doubts.

bounty hunter

Thank you, Witser, I didn't know abut that thread on the other forum. Given that you were skeptical of pastimebaseballs.com then (both in your first post on the thread you began and again in your concluding post), aren't you the least bit curious as to this seller's connection to pastimebaseballs.com, who just happened to change their eBay user id from brandongrun? I am.


Jerry F!cch!

Ok, I'm a little slow this morning. There are more pages to the thread Witster provided. I referenced the first and last post of his on the first page, only.

The second page includes a response from Brandon of pastimebaseballs.com. Look, obviously he is very knowledgable about the history of baseballs and should continue to share it. However, why hide personal history, even if it entailed producing replica baseballs that looked damned near original? Tell us the whole story and let's all move forward.

I dont think I can agree more with what Leon said here.

If there was a pattern of behavior such as the one described in this thread then I think the witch hunt should continue but this seems like nothing more than a mistake/misunderstanding/whatever. Who hasnt made these types of errors at one time or another? Let it go guys. Let it go.

Jerry,
The "WHOLE STORY" Hasnt been fabricated yet;) Someone has to figure out who will become the whipping boy. I also agree with Dan Money really has nothing to do with it. This is really a case of Boy got caught with his hand in the cookie jar,is now called out about it and has to figure a way out. Problem is now his creditably is shot to pieces either way he turns. Sorry Brandon I could never ever deal with you . As you put it a 20.50 mistake will now probably cost you your reputation my friend!:rolleyes:

I'm definitely late to the conversation, but I was shocked by what I began reading yesterday, and these attacks on Brandon have been bothering me since.

Al, I'm sure Brandon is just devastated that he'll never make a deal with you or your ridiculous emoticons ever again. I've got to say between you and Paul and Jerry and a couple of other folks on this thread, I'm deeply disappointed in how easy you all throw around accusations about a person who has gone above and beyond to help so many of us out with questions and concerns about vintage baseballs.

I first corresponded with Brandon when I had a bad eBay experience where someone sold me a fake ball. He couldn't have been more helpful and I've gone to him for valuable advice many time since then.

To think he'd throw away his hard earned reputation over a $20.50 ball is lunacy. It makes no sense.

Doug Franz

The hobby of collecting is run everyday on the guise of the confidence game. You gain confidence in a person/company until you believe everything they say or do.

It is the invention of ones self and once you become a believer you are forever captured

Doug,
Your right you are late to this conversation.
1) Go back to post 38 and read it Brandon himself says "I made a 20.50 mistake"
2)As for dealing with him I stated my opinion as you stated yours. I could really give a damn either way.
3) I only posted once in this entire thread.
4) As for yourself I give no weight to a person who has only posted 2 times and given nothing to this board. Looks to me like a person who is friends with Brandon trying to save his @ss.

Doug,
Here is the post in case you missed it. Your own boys words!
And as for creditably until he gives up the name of the person HE HAS NONE!

Quoted from Harper Lee in the book To Kill A Mockingbird, " You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view...Until you climb inside his skin and walk around in it."

The seller has changed his eBay user ID.

After reading this thread and Brandon's knowledge that there are people on this site that can get things taken down. Wy did he not ask for help. Then there would be reason to go through all this crap.:confused:

Shelly, I'm sure he realized that he would get thrown under the bus - if a situation comes up where your reputation could be damaged permanently, it's probably best to seek advice privately. But we all handle such situations differently - I would have gone to Leon and asked him for a contact to get the ball removed, then I would have posted to let everyone here know what I had done. But I don't know Brandon and there could also be additional detail about this that we don't know.

I would take that statement as you agree. If it had been taken down this would not be an issue. He did not have to go to Leon all he needed to post and ask to have it taken down. The chance of that happening is really high.

No, I don't agree. As I stated, posting publicly about something like this is the best way to get thrown under the bus by some who have logical responses, but also by others who are truly idiots. It might be the way to go for some, but I wouldn't draw and quarter Brandon for choosing not to. I think his failure was in not getting the auction ended, but anyone with half a brain could see that it would have been worse than moronic for Brandon to screw his reputation over something like this. Not saying he didn't, but it's not at all logical.

So you dont agree? Yet you do agree if he had the ball removed this would not have happened.
I also agree that here is a guy that everyone went to for help when it came down to bb's . Now he is a bad guy:confused:

I don't know how it would have played out if he had done what you suggested.

Wow...took me a while to get through all of that...
Alot of great concerns here, but I agree that this sounds more like a witch hunt.

Firstly my name is also Brandon and I reside in Ontario Canada. I have never met Grun face to face ( what with the thousands of kms between us ) but have spoken with him on the phone a few times and conversed through hundreds of emails and facebook. I consider him a friend whom I have never actually met. I also collect antique baseballs...when I can afford the ever growing prices...and Blue Jays memorabilia ( lol dont judge ).

Brandon is all about the hobby. Period. He ousts fake balls all of the time with the interest of protecting the hobby. He has accomplished more for the hobby in the last few years than anyone could have imagined, so some respect should be give to him is this respect...not to mention some praise.
He emails ebay all the time having balls removed due to inaccuracies or speculations... I bet he has helped most ball collectors even without their knowledge somewhere along the line. He has stopped me from bidding on balls and has helped me with tips bidding on balls through other certain auction sites.

When he said earlier that he doesnt/wont make alot of money on his books...trust me...he wont be. Ive spoken with him about this sort of thing. He is producing his book (s) for his extreme love for the actual history of baseballs.

I trust EVERYTHING Brandon has ever said to me about baseballs because he IS the expert on baseballs. Can anyone else say that? There is not a chance he would throw any of his success away for a Frick ball. None at all.
Brandon has given his explanation on this matter, so bashing him ( because that is what is occuring here ) doesnt help things. He has cleared up the mess on his end and Im sure will be more diligent in helping the hobby in finding more fraudulant baseballs...but remember here guys, he has a day job and cant sit on these auction sites all day long, so some are going to get by even his eye.