If the OP is unhappy with this contract, he needs to speak with an attorney; see what legal recourse he has, if any. It's not going to be resolved via a card collecting forum.

I am sure he probably thinks a few things you should do too, Jay. :) I don't think Steve owes anyone an explanation more than I quoted him.

From what I have read, seen, and know, I don't think it's right to keep this thread on the front page to the detriment of the auction house, who has an auction closing soon. It doesn't look like they did anything wrong to me. Contracts can always be negotiated. I have done good and bad deals. The consignor didn't get a bad deal here, from what has been shown. But it can be talked about ad nauseam in this other section.

Sorry to be harsh and of course for the OP's circumstances, but it looks like a case of consignor's regret to me and IMO just from general principles unless this deal is somehow unconscionable under industry standards, or is somehow missing enough basic terms to make it enforceable which I doubt (sure the ideal contract would cover a host of details but that's not necessary for a binding contract), then the OP will not be able to rescind it. Plus it's already been partially performed, as Leland's with the OP's consent packed the items and took them away. And maybe he got an advance too, I'd have to reread it.

No, but I did stay at a holiday inn.😀

Haha!

Something I noticed in the OP's first post is the following parenthetical statement that I don't believe anyone has mentioned:

(they DID NOT take it all as discussed, but cherry picked all of the more expensive items)

So the auction house did not take everything, but just what they viewed as more expensive? And this took two trucks? I understand that there is a lot of effort to sort through a large volume of items, especially if not super well-organized, but the OP claims this bounty was cherry-picked. To me it sounds like the auction house made a one-day determination of the more valuable items, and seeing it in this light, gave the consignor a really low percentage of the final winning auction bids. I suggest the OP try to come up with a list of what was taken by the auction company, and let us know what that is.

If nothing else we can be on the lookout for when these items come up for auction, and see if the auction house has indeed been fair with their consignment offer.

brianp(arker)-beme

They came with 2 trucks, but did not take it all, so maybe what they took didn't require both trucks.

My personal view, strictly as a hobbyist, is that 40% of the net after authentication fees is a terrible deal and borderline exploitative in a situation like the consignor describes (assuming the recitation is accurate as to how it went down). I also find the "it's a lot work" excuse to be unconvincing; we all work hard. Probably the best thing to do is for the AHs to return the items and tear up the contract, and for the OP to return the advance (or to agree on what is to be kept to repay the advance). Legalities aside, the consignor is very unhappy and the situation is just distasteful enough to make it a potential PR nightmare. In this extremely competitive hobby, it is probably a business mistake to hide behind the contract and get trashed as a result. Happy customers may tell a friend or two; unhappy customers are sure to tell ten. I wonder how many readers here made the decision not to go with Lelands or Clean Sweep as a result of what they have read.

Now, as a lawyer, if I was consulted by a CA resident who appears to be a senior and in health-related distress, my go-to would be the financial elder abuse laws. In my state, one has to be very, very careful in dealing with seniors because the legal consequences of playing fast and loose with their assets are punishing. It is a hellscape of heavy civil and potential criminal penalties; one of my clients went to jail over a transaction that might not have been treated as a crime if his counterparty had been a 45 year old man instead of an old woman. If we take the OP at face value, it appears that some items that the consignor did not think were part of the deal were taken, and that the basis for the high fees (lots of work) may not ring true if there was substantial cherry-picking. One of the things that raises my concern if I was representing the auctioneers is the lack of detail in the contract. That, plus the two-on-one, speedy dealmaking in the consignor's home, are factors that can go into a determination of potential elder financial abuse. There is just enough doodie stink on the potpourri to be concerning.

Wow
 

I'm flabbergasted that there are people on here who think 40% is reasonable
I dont care if there's 1000 items to be sold
In this market the auction house could easily auction it off in 3 auctions if necessary...no extra work
That excuse is total bs..THATS THEIR JOB...I know auction houses that would line up to take that consignment and give the consignor 100 %...not only that but if its an easy 100k
consignment AH would give consignor at least $30k
up front

Without knowing more details about the actual contents of the collection (aside from the few items mentioned by the OP) and how well it was or wasn't organized, it seems pretty hard to judge what a reasonable split of the auction proceeds would be.

I've spent the last few months going through a collection that a friend of mine had which filled 2/3 of a 20 foot UHaul and had almost no organization to it at all. Knowing how much time and effort I put in just to figure out what I had, to say that an auction house could easily take care of a collection that maybe filled 2 trucks of unknown size seems a little unrealistic. Sure, that's their job, but just like any job, the more work involved, the higher the cost.

Is this a new policy? Feel like I have seen threads that could have been detrimental to an auction house during a live auction on the main board plenty of times.

I don't know if different ads appear for different users, but the banner on my front page has a prominent Leland's ad. I imagine that has a lot to do with it.

Im not. This board loves AHs.

+1

Perhaps the original poster could, as fully as possible, list what was in the consignment. Any images would also be helpful. Things should have been fully inventoried in the contract, but save that, a public list now may help to alleviate possible issues later. Other questions that the consignor may want to try to resolve are how and for what amount is the collection insured for loss or damage. As a SoCal resident I can vouch for the fact that the unexpected can happen. Also, how will the consignor be compensated. My guess is that the auctioning of these items will take some time. Will the consignor be paid as things are sold or only at the end.

I just bought a graded card collection of 8 two row shoe boxes that fit in the back seat of my car on 1 side that had 1200 graded cards in it. Can you honestly envision two trucks full being a measly 1000 items. Likely tens of thousands of uncatalogued items.

So the auction house will give the consignor 100% of the hammer, part of the buyer premium, and a $30K advance when their final take would be less than $20K. What world are you living in?

No new policy. Every situation is different. My position stands.
Thanks
.

It's also a country club comprised of very wealthy arm chair "sea lawyers" who know everything about everything. If you're not in the club, or go counter to the club's unwritten rules of buying and selling very expensive (pocket change to them) graded cards they just ignore you.

I am not offering an opinion on the OP's situation. If anything the facts are so freakin' opaque, and incomplete, and conflicting as to what the hell even happened here, any opinion on this board appears to me to more of a guess.

I will say that it's amazing to me how many people on the board denigrate AHs at every opportunity and seem to have little clue as to how much work they (or at least the good ones) actually do. Canvassing for items, collecting, sorting, organizing, handling sending off to grading, investigating and researching, photographing, preparing a catalog, doing mailing, etc. Some of you guys seem to believe that these guys running AHs are sitting on their asses all day long smoking cigars just waiting for money to pour in. It's absurd. To the extent I have any visibility into how they do business, it seems to be a shit ton of of work to build out an auction, deal with consignors, deal with bidders, answer phone calls the night of the auction, deal with pissed off consignors and bidders after the auction, ship hundreds of boxes out, track down missing boxes, etc.

Occasionally I sell a few items a month on eBay and it's much more of a pain in the ass than I really need.

Auction houses are legitimate businesses that perform tasks and functions, and don't just sit there waiting for money to roll in.

Cherry-picking the collection (if true) and taking 40% of the cut is a really, really bad deal for the consignor.

No reasonable person should have signed this contract when it was presented to them, for, if nothing else, that it is more like someone's notes than an actual contract and is wildly incomplete. A consignor need not sign anything put in front of them and should not, the auction house obviously is looking out for their own financial interests, and the consignor should know to do the same for themselves and do their due diligence.

This 'contract' is so poorly phrased and done that it should be pretty easy to get out of.

An inventory list would complete the evidentiary part from the consignors end.

It would be interesting to hear how the OP's post was "not accurate", as the production of the contract seems to validate most of them.

We can further deduce its probably not a fair deal to the consignor because talk of it had to be banned to the watercooler to reduce eyes on it, which does not happen to threads that reflect well on Lelands, only those that reflect poorly (previous example: https://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=276894)

You are just an ignorant asshole sometimes that has a part of a story and then you make crap up. That thread you listed was posted 8 days after my wife of 25 yrs died tragically. I wasn't dealing with Josh Evans at the time and did what I did. Like I say, every situation is different. That said, just in case you don't like it here...

Did the OP already accept a cash advance?

Yes, I am all bad things and every insult is correct. What crap did I make up though in that post? At least 2 threads criticizing Lelands have, in provable fact, been sent to the watercooler. I said nothing about any deal you may have with Evans, much less when you had/have such dealings - that was a completely different poster in a different post in the thread.

Is there a rule that watercooler banishings cannot be brought up? Several people in the last thread and at least 2 others in this one are guilty of it too without receiving these insults or a ban.

Plenty of them on the board


Myself included.


A-- H---

Doesn't stand for auction house!

I was going to stay out of it but I changed my mind.

I was good friends with Joe from the mid 80's to the early 2000s. I saw a good chunk of his stuff. He had the best Rusty Staub collection in the world, virtuallly everything that existed that he could get.

About 90% of his collection is Rusty Staub. It includes multiples of every Topps card, all the Topps Test issues such as the 68 3D (I think he had 2 or 3 of them), Action Stickers, Discs, Punch-out, Greatest Moments you name it, he had at least 1 of each.

He had several original Jerseys, bats, balls, gloves, a zillion autographed items including mostly photos. You name it. if it was Staub, he had it.

I always thought it was insane that someone could be so obsessed with one player, especially a non hall-of-famer and I knew when he eventually sold the collection most of it would be hard to sell.

He should have gotten 100% or more for all the "cream" in his collection, but all the photos, newspapers, etc. I could see him getting only 50% at most due to the sheer volume.

Phil G

I never said anything about a ban. If someone gets banned then they did something they were asked not to do or they didn't follow normal rules. You might read the rules if you want to know what is in there. They have been posted forever....

Yes, I have seen them. So, what did I make up? You directly accused me of making crap up, which would be lying. Where did I do this? The documentary record supports exactly what I said, and I even linked it in my claim.

How about PMing Leon instead of ruining another thread with your off topic crap.:D

I am not spending my day arguing with you. Please argue with others. thanks
.

Threads banished to the watercooler for criticizing Lelands is on topic in a thread in which that very thing happens :). It was public because Leon chose to publicly and falsely accuse me of lying.

Just let me know if you think the thread is ruined and I'll start a second one with a poll.:eek:

This thread has gotten legs on other social media sites.

I do hope we get more of a statement from the people referenced.

I feel bad for OP, but it seems like his collection was large and unorganized, and very esoteric. I can see what was 'cherry-picking' to him being Leland's/Clean Sweep deciding much of it wasn't saleable. As for the contract, I hope there is more to it than what is being shown, because the picture in the first post looks like it was written on the back of a napkin, and the Net54 Bar Association can't even agree on what very basic tenents of it mean.

Thank you Peter for the laugh. I was actually going to suggest that but didn't want to post more off topic crap. I am sure at this point there will be no more productive posts unless the OP comes back with more details. Have a great day!:)

Thanks for posting this additional information about the collection.

-
As a working class collector that sacrifices a lot to stay in the game (by choice), that has not been my experience. Some of the nicest most helpful members have been from the high net worth group you deride.

Are there jerks here, indeed, but far fewer than in the general population.

OK. So if your friend's collection is worth well into six figures, say $300,000, would you say $120,000 is a fair price for the work you did? I'm just asking.

And obviously, none of us really know all the facts here, we are all just making up theories as we go along.

Sent from my SM-S906U using Tapatalk

You know, the poster wasn't even a member on this board. It was his first post. Most of us are very sympathetic to anyone's complaints on here, whether it's about evil Ebay, corrupt FedEx or big uncaring auction houses.

Usually you get some insight behind the posts. If it's James, he's just letting off steam, if it's Yoda, he probably forgot his meds. But this is some random newbie poster looking to flame some well known AHs.

I don't see where he has any rights to broadcast on our forum. The thread is entertaining to me, but I am surprised that Leon allowed it in the first place.

Sent from my SM-S906U using Tapatalk

Some obvious stupid negligence to gripe about is one thing, but not sure this is the best forum to trot out one side of a full blown breach of contract dispute.

It's not an exact comparison because my friend inherited his collection and knows nothing about it or has ever been interested in sports cards and memorabilia. Without some kind of help from someone who knew about the hobby, he would have probably had a tough time finding someone to buy it (or an auction house to be willing to go through it all) at anywhere close to the value it turned out to be worth since the vast majority of items were low value. However, mixed in amongst everthing was a lot of value, so yes, I think the work I did for him was worth at least 40% to him. Below is a picture of what I was dealing with which only shows about 2/3 of what he had. This is a 10x15 storage unit it's in, and the rest was in another office he was renting.

For the OP, without knowing more details about how the collection was organized, the desirability of the items and their general value, it's hard to say what would be a fair cut for an auction house. Regardless of the value of an item, there's still some time required to list it in an auction. If something is going to sell for $5000, it doesn't take 1000x longer to list it than an item that will sell for $5. Based on a post by someone who knew the OP, it sounds like there were some better items but a large amount of items that would take a lot of time and effort to go through and organize before listing even though they were not high value, and if they're only going to sell for a small amount, the auction house needs to make more on the better items to make it worth their time and effort. I still don't think enough is known about the overall situation to be able to judge how fair it is to the OP.

Interesting
 

I wonder if the person who coached or told the OP to post this will show his face?

I have known Steve Verkman for over 35 years. I have 1000s of deals with him. I have never had any issues. He’s always been honest and up front in regard to terms.

If I had two truck loads of mediocre stuff and a few decent items I would be happy with a 15k advance and allow someone else to hustle all the lower end stuff for me at the agreed upon percentage. We all think our stuff is worth more than it is. I suspect the OP might be happy at the end once he gets a final check and sees all the work that was done.?

We don’t have very many details and it seems like several members are quick to judge with minimal info.

I think Leon handled this very well too.

I wish the OP well with any medical issue he is having and hope this works itself out and everyone is happy in the end.

Is this really a breach of contract dispute? More like a dispute about the fairness of the contract, but I don't think there's been any claim that the terms of the contract have been breached.

A signed document is a deal ??
 

Was this 1805 signed document to trade a couple horses for some land a legal deal/document--a few years ago my father bought some land in Texas, Paid the man, signed all the legal documents etc. After the fact the seller thought he could have got more--and took my father to court to break-up the agreement. -- a deals a deal isn't it?

That looks a lot like my collection. Are you going to be in Chicago anytime soon?

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I haven't had any personal interaction with the parties involved, but it sure seems like OP ended up with a very bad deal. I can't imagine getting only 60% of the proceeds of my collection from an AH.

For the right price, maybe I could be. :)

Jay---that would have been a great unit for a Storage Wars episode

Think this is my very first time over in the "water cooler" section. Didn't really know it existed until now. lol. Might have to wander over here more often.

Yuuuuuuuuuuuuuup!

The first few days I spent going through stuff was basically to determine if it was worth the time and effort or if we should just try to find someone to buy it as is. I found enough to decide to go through it all, and it was the right decision.