well not talking a specifically about a card but sites do give a 'sell/sold' price right after the auction.....not everyone pays on their wins yet I never seen an auction house erase a 'sell/sold' price...Plus in theory, the card was actually sold, meaning there was a legal obligation from the buyer to pay for it, but in real life that doesnt mean much if they didnt actually pay and you arent going to collect. You can get a judgment as well against a homeless person for million dollars but again it doesnt mean anything if you cant collect but yes, you do have a million dollar judgment. Same thing as 'selling' a koufax rookie for 100k at auction, but not collecting, you can still say it 'sold for 100k' . There are probably some people that may not pay for an item but actually the type of people you can collect from as well on their legal obligation.


I'm assuming 1/100 times you may see a 'sell/sold' card that never was paid for relisted with the same auction but i dont remember REA/mile high/goodwin ever doing that the last few years.

If the card didn't exchange hands for the amount they are showing it did, then that's deceptive and an outright lie. If the card did sell, whether it be to the under bidder or to someone else, then that is the price that should be listed.

This is nothing more than the ugly side of the hobby, the ugly side that keeps people from collecting/purchasing in order to keep the hobby healthy and strong. :(

The better and higher priced the cards, the more haters, card doctors, and scammers that come out and play. You go ahead and build a better mousetrap...hidden reserves, psa, jsa...they build a better mouse ;)

It's trending around $12K right now. I think getting to $20K in the next few years would be an accomplishment.

Again, not exactly, so what if the auction house sued the person that was the high bidder and got a judgment for 100k on a mantle plus the buyers premium (20k) for a total of 120k because they proved they legitimately sold the card for 120k. That would mean in a court of law they proved a sale of 120k. The card didnt change hands yet because it was not paid for. I not saying that was the case in whatever example we were talking about, but showing there are situations that if the card didnt change hands it can still be said it 'sold' without it being an outright lie.

It not worth auction houses to sue on every case but again a legal obligation was created to pay.

People 'sell' houses all the time especially in 2008 and the buyer with no real ability to pay got a ridiculous mortgage to buy the house way above perceived market price. To the property tax appraiser and the 'market' the house sold for what the buyer was 'obligated' to pay even if later the house goes into foreclosure because that buyer never paid for the house. Even though the house was never paid (lets say 2 years were paid on a 30 year mortgage) the 'sold' price is what that buyer paid with that mortgage .

Comparing house to cards is not comparing apples to apples. It is very rare we hear of a house being sold only to find out people did not or will not pay for it.

Real estate has signatures, meeting people/agents face to face, home inspections, the list goes on and on. Cards, on the other hand, especially those being sold through auctions like E-Bay or actual A/H's, don't have that luxury. Most in the card biz know that shilling and bid retractions, to name a couple, exist all the time and if either one says they're surprised, they are also lying.

Again, listing a card as being sold for $80,000 when no money exchanged hands, and the fact they probably knew by then the bid was retracted, or whatever the case is, like I said, is outright deceptive and nothing but a lie.

Irv you have identified a glitch in the prices realized system we all depend on; I could be wrong but I doubt any major seller goes back and identifies cards that weren't paid for. Hopefully it's only a rare occurrence, although my guess is that during last year's price spike (to use a neutral term) it occurred at a higher rate than usual.

I recall reading one, Peter, where a new adjusted price was listed after the 1st one fell through. I forget the A/H, but I was glad to see they did that.

Either this card in question did sell for that amount, contrary to what a lot of people said on here, or the A/H, for whatever reason, didn't bother to adjust their sold listing.

After reading what the A/H was speculating about this card and future sales, I am pretty sure they were likely highly embarrassed and therefore, trying to save face by not correcting the actual sold price.

Actually there was a huge housing market crash for 3 or so years and tens of thousands of people bought houses that could not afford it. People with no income were getting $250,000 loans with no money down. There was also robo signatures and no real check on someone's ability to pay. Those 'sold' prices absolutely impacted the market price for legitimate buyers in the housing market.

For all we know someone could of borrowed from their credit card $50000 and bought a card then never paid the credit card. Borrowing money you cant afford and paying for an item would mean that item 'sold' but its not a true sale if the buyer couldnt afford the item. People were flipping cards and people were flipping houses as well. Credit finally ran out in the housing market and perhaps in the card market if the buyer was unable to flip an earlier card they now couldnt afford the pricey auction item they initially intended to pay.

Adding facts about 'they probably knew by then the bid was retracted' is an added premise. We have no idea of that. The example of someone bidding for the card and having a legal obligation to pay for it but not having the funds to pay for is equally as possible.

The A/H, to this day, has not corrected the original sold price.:confused:
I know very little about the big house crash in the U.S., other than to say I heard about it, but did houses not sell, money exchanged hands, and did the people/new owners not move in before it crashed?

Don't forget if they did pay for the card, but then filed bankruptcy

Well, lets remember when you a buy a house without your funds and use a mortgage you really didnt use your money, plus you never really 'owned' the house, the bank did. Banks had no reason to lend 250k to people with no income but they did anyway and the people with no income had no ability to afford the loan unless they flipped the house or they got a second and third mortgage to pay off the first mortgage which they were able to get from a rising housing market (due to other banks giving money to other new homeowner buyers with no ability to pay) Thus money did exchange hands, but not the homeowners money but a banks money which ultimately led to many banks going out of business.

Thus moving in doesnt mean anything as they didnt own the house but again the sale price was registered in the market. On ebay past sales are shown all the time even when payment is not received.

Saying an item is 'sold' doesnt mean money exchanged hands, it means a legal obligation was there to pay for it.

The single worst, and possibly most inaccurate, description of the housing crash i have ever laid eyes on

Like I mentioned, I only heard of it so I have no idea if, Jake's story is fact or fiction, but I do know, like I mentioned before, I am not sure how this whole housing collapse thing can be used as an comparison to whether a card was paid for or not? :confused:

I think I am wise just to let my questions about this $80,000 dollar Koufax die.

Part of the problem was people just selling there socials and never moving into properties. IMO It's much more than that, but that was the most blatent fraud among developers and buyers.....not to get too politcal :)

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I not talking about the whole housing crash, i just describing one small aspect and 'part of the problem' just like you did in your post. I dont think one sale of a baseball card as well describes the entire baseball card hobby market.

Again though, you just said there was blatent fraud and the other poster talked about that there must of been many face to face transactions and money changing hands and people were moving into the properteis so the sales had to be more real. So you are supporting my argument that you can have 'sales' but that not be real in the housing market very easily. I do not think you can argue that for a period of time the housing market prices were not manipulated.

Ok let me know if its inaccurate that people were getting credit to houses they couldnt afford as at least one aspect of the housing market crash. I guess everyone could afford all those houses even though there were thousands of foreclosures within a year or 2 of time. I have been involved in many mortgage modifications and the things you learn there are amazing.

but again, my argument is that you can easily 'sell' something as an auction house and it not be an outright lie if money doesnt change hands.

Jake, there is so much wrong with your description of the housing market crash, I don't know where to start a critique, however correct your analogy might be, which is getting increasingly more difficult to decipher.

Are you saying "a bubble is a bubble and can burst when we don't know what's actually inflating it"? That I can agree with

I think its gone a bit too much off topic and as you stated you didnt want to be political (your name does start with Republican)

The point was that I dont agree its an outright lie if an auction house says they 'sold' a card on their website when looking at past listings if money didnt change hands. I used the analogy of the housing market. That is all. Thanks

Not to poke a hole in your analogy, But didn't money change hands with a housing sale, regardless of they paid their loan or not? If the sale never closed, then it would be a fraudulent report, no?

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I addressed this. It was banks money not the person's money. House is owned by the bank not the person. People could pay 250k when it wasnt their money. For some reason people like to pay more for things with other peoples money.

In fact, people owed more money than the house was 'worth'. A legal obligation was made for the buyer to pay back the bank. Even if they didn't pay back the bank, the house was considered 'sold'

There was fraud on the banks many times when they were lending 250k to people with no jobs with no ability to pay back the loan and the mortgage broker would make a huge fee to get the loan approved so there were huge incentives to get the loans approved by whatever means necessary.

Bottom line in the house market, if you look at 'past sales' The sale prices are shown without mention if they are Cash deals or for deals that are funded entirely by borrowed funds. Both are considered sales as one situation the hoouse was actually paid for by the buyers money, and the other situation there was a legal obligation to pay back a bank (with no ability to pay back in many of the foreclosure situations ) who forwarded the money. The analogy is that in the card purchase situation and in that problem mortgage situation, there was a legal obligation to pay and thus both are considered a past sale. In the baseball card market we dont know if the card was actually purchased or just sold unless the auction house tells us but in both cases the card was indeed 'sold'

Banks could get judgments against the buyers who didnt pay back the mortgage and so could the auction house against the bidder who didnt pay. In both situations the house/card was purchased because there was a legal obligation to pay.

I believe it's a common occurrence. If the AH's don't want to verify payment to VCP, maybe VCP should ask for verification? Especially when the price is more than 10% over average. If AH can't verify, VCP doesn't post.

Agreed with above post, though doubt it will happen. This would be similar to using a home appraisal, throwing out first payment defaults. VCP I believe already does eliminate the highest and lowest sales when the compute their average.


If someone doesnt pay for their house 29 years, and 11 months down the road, is THAT still a sale?

All depends but its not like a legit cash deal (assuming its arms length transaction)

If somone bought a psa 5 topps mantle for 70k due to a credit card advance that he never paid and another psa 5 topps mantle went to market i know i would of wanted to know that information. When funds are borrowed to pay for things it brings up a lot more factors to me. Someone that borrows money may need to sell the card fast and attempt to flip it to pay back the loan and take risk of a loss versus a cash investor as one example. I know when a house is foreclosed on (after a recent purchase) and sold by the bank the expected new sale price from the bank will be less than the prior sale in many occasions. If no money is ever borrowed on a home there is no risk of the foreclosure fire sale.

What ebay sales via about paypal bill me later?

I disagree. Like your housing analogy, whether it's the actual new owner or the bank, papers were signed and money from either the new owner or the bank did exchange hands somewhere.

The buyer could have easily said he would pay a million for the card. Does that mean the card sold for a million? Talk is cheap, and even a handshake means very little this day, and neither means anything unless money actually changed hands.

No it was not. Again, no signatures, face to face meetings took place, etc, etc, etc, with the card in question.

If money did not exchange hands, then there is no sale, and with no sale, they have no right to say the card sold for that amount.

Personal story. I had listed a snowmobile for sale quite a few years ago for a $1000.00 dollars. I had an out of town person call me and tell me they would take it for that amount sight unseen and would be there in 2 days to pick it up.
In the meantime, I had 2 guys come by for a look and see and they said they would take it for $800. I told them, although I didn't feel very good about it (greed got the best of me!) that I had a guy who was going to give me a $1000 for it in 2 days.

2 days came and passed, and you guessed it, the original person, who said they would buy it for a $1000.00 was nowhere to be found? I called and received no answer so I called the other 2 guys who offered me $800 but they had already purchased another sled.

Long story short, I ended up only getting $650 for it. When my friends asked what I "sold" my sled for, I told them $650 dollars,,,,,,,,,, not the $1000.00 the first guy said he would purchase it for.

I disagree. Like your housing analogy, whether it's the actual new owner or the bank, papers were signed and money from either the new owner or the bank did exchange hands somewhere.

You also agree to terms on the internet auction sites to be legally liable for your winning bids. Its an agreement you click online which is the same as a signature


The buyer could have easily said he would pay a million for the card. Does that mean the card sold for a million? Talk is cheap, and even a handshake means very little this day, and neither means anything unless money actually changed hands.

Its not about talk, theres a LEGAL OBLIGATION, why dont you win every lot at the next REA auction and not pay since talk is cheap and money wont change hands. However you wont do that because you dont want to be sued for your agreement that you had signed for online and agreed to the rules. You would owe the amounts of your winning bids.



No it was not. Again, no signatures, face to face meetings took place, etc, etc, etc, with the card in question.

If money did not exchange hands, then there is no sale, and with no sale, they have no right to say the card sold for that amount.

Thats not correct. Its sale you can get sued on by the auction house. You agreed to pay and its a sale. Otherwise, lets see you win the next 1952 Topps Mantle and not pay and see what happens.

Personal story. I had listed a snowmobile for sale quite a few years ago for a $1000.00 dollars. I had an out of town person call me and tell me they would take it for that amount sight unseen and would be there in 2 days to pick it up.
In the meantime, I had 2 guys come by for a look and see and they said they would take it for $800. I told them, although I didn't feel very good about it (greed got the best of me!) that I had a guy who was going to give me a $1000 for it in 2 days.

2 days came and passed, and you guessed it, the original person, who said they would buy it for a $1000.00 was nowhere to be found? I called and received no answer so I called the other 2 guys who offered me $800 but they had already purchased another sled.

Long story short, I ended up only getting $650 for it. When my friends asked what I "sold" my sled for, I told them $650 dollars,,,,,,,,,, not the $1000.00 the first guy said he would purchase it for.

Well if you could find the guy and could prove he agreed to pay you that money you could of sued him. However, unlike an auction house you never got a commitment in writing and probably didnt know his name and location and probably not worth your time to pursue.

Lets take in another step, people agree to pay rent (lets say $1000), then dont pay the rent at the end of the month. Money didnt change hands, but cant you tell the next prospective renter that the last renter was 'paying $1000 a month' That wouldnt be an outright lie.

Remember we are going by whether the auction house is saying an outright lie when selling a card and saying it sold for X amount but money didnt change hands. If we have to point to specific instances on each end to make an argument for our side than its not an outright lie. I didnt say its a good thing what they are doing but its not an outright lie is my argument.

How 'bout them '52 Mantle's up for auction?

Think they'll sell for a good price?

lol, +1

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,and agree to disagree.

Yeah its all in fun. Its one thing to respond to buy something on craigslist to someone to buy a lawnmower and not show up and the seller doesnt even know your name etc and another to bid in a Heritage Auction for a 30k card and not pay...there is definite risk of a lawsuit for damages against you in the auction situation as its deemed you 'purchased' the card.

I not sure if anyone on Net54 has any story about being the high bidder on a card over 10k and then not paying at an auction house like Heritage as I would be interested to see how it was handled..

? Really? WTF
Yeah, let me tell you about all the times I bid on items over $10K and how each major auction house banned me.

Are you really serious?

Well there could of been an error in the listing or like that Dimaggio rookie card where it was found a psa 7 was earlier an SGC4 and not disclosed and the buyer didnt pay.

The fact that people are scared to bid a ton and 'win' the card and not pay shows there is fear of winning a card and that a 'sold' price means something. Plus you say banned, but they may of been sued due the fact that the card did sell for X amount. (though there may be a good defense from the buyer)

I would think there are some lawsuits out there as well that have long been resolved that someone may of discussed some of the issues with.

It was a shot in the dark but its not unreasonable that someone could contribute something without looking remotely bad.

You gave one example that wouldnt' make sense for a buyer to share, but there are many other examples that perhaps a buyer would.

psa 1 just sold last night north of $14k
 

psa 1 just sold last night north of $14k - that has to be a record for a PSA 1 right?

Card was NICE in my opinion .

Minus the tape, the PSA 1 that closed last evening was a sharp card.....likely close to, if not a record for a PSA 1. A 1.5 sold for $14.8 K in November. More surprising is the SGC 50 that sold for $17.6.....while not centered, it was crease/wrinkle free.

That's higher, but more in line where prices were before the huge "run up". Once/if see 3s back around the 10k number, I feel more people will jump in the water.