This has definitely become my favorite discussion on the forum :) It's a fascinating dive into human psychology.

It really is, just probably not the way you are thinking.

Travis, I think Brian would be surprised to learn he was fired from the FBI. He was a decorated FBI agent and probably one of the best two I’ve ever worked with and against. Similarly, you know I can’t talk about my relationship with Brent but like everything else you have said here, it’s either a lie or just wrong.

You’re a low level fraudster. Period. And you want to convince yourself that you aren’t a fraudster by twisting yourself into a pretzel in defending of all people, Bill Mastro.

It's a two-way street. You guys think I'm batshit crazy and remarkably stubborn (to say it politely) because I won't admit to being wrong about something when you think I'm debating legal matters with a legal expert.

But there's a while other side you're not seeing to this, which is that the legal experts in this thread have such tunnel vision that they cannot understand why someone would think there is merit in pointing out that someone being charged with a specific crime and found guilty of having committed that crime by a jury would have different implications than someone agreeing to a plea deal where dozens of offenses with varying degrees of seriousness were listed on it.

Here's the key difference. In one case, someone successfully argued in front of a jury that not only was someone guilty of doing the thing they are being accused of, but (and here's the kicker) also that the thing they are being accused of is in fact a crime to begin with. That's the key differentiator here. In a plea deal, you can just accuse them of something that you think is a crime and if they think the deal they're being offered is a favorable outcome, they'll just agree to it. And you never even have to successfully argue whether or not accusation #21 out of a list of 37 accusations was even a crime to begin with. And it might not matter anyhow, especially if the other 36 charges are far more serious (which in this case they certainly were).

The tunnel vision crew is stuck on the fact that Mastro was charged with trimming the Wagner and pled guilty to a list of charges in his plea deal which included the Wagner trimming/reselling. They are simply taking for granted that what he did with the Wagner was even a crime to begin with. What I am saying is that I don't believe that's a given. I'm saying it's something that would need to be argued. It's not like stealing a car or slashing someone's tires or something. This isn't a black & white issue. It would be very easy to make an argument that what he did with the Wagner wasn't even a crime to begin with. I'm saying it needs to be argued in front of a judge and jury. I'm also saying that because the Mastro case ended in a plea deal, the hobby was robbed of the opportunity to see how a jury would view the arguments for and against what he did with the Wagner as even being a crime to begin with. I think it would be very difficult to make the case today, knowing what we know, that he withheld material information about the Wagner when we know that the entire hobby is well aware that the card was trimmed but that it still didn't affect its value one bit (how can a fact be material if knowing it does not affect the value of something?). It is still to this day the single most valuable sports card in existence. There were no victims in his sale of that card. And if you think it's just a given that a jury would automatically accept your viewpoint/argument that it is in fact a crime, I'm saying perhaps you should think again.

That sure smells a lot like defamation to me, Jeff.

What you're missing, among other things, is that the reason people agree to plea deals in the first place is that they've been advised that the admissible evidence against them is so strong that they'll highly likely be convicted if they go to trial. People don't agree to go to jail lightly. So the decision to plead is highly correlated with the strength of a case and the likely outcome of a trial. If Bill Mastro and his counsel thought there was any modest chance he would be acquitted, he would have gone to trial.

Sue him for defamation. Please. Please do it.

No, I'm not missing that at all. Of course he did. Every other charge on that plea deal was far more serious. He knew he was cooked. His only objective at that point was to spend the least amount of time behind bars as possible. But we still learned nothing about whether or not what he did with the Wagner would have been viewed as a crime by a jury to begin with. I know you think it's pretty straight-forward. Jeff thinks it's straight-forward as well. But I assure you, it is not so cut and dried.

I'm just hoping to be the subject of his next podcast episode.

Don't bitch out, do it. You know the law better, I'm sure you'll win.

If I recall now, the charge was that he touted the past sale of the Wagner by Mastronet, and the price realized, without disclosing that he had trimmed it. I believe the prior sale had been years before, the one he touted. At that time, "everyone" certainly did not know it was trimmed, nor could you fairly say that it wasn't a material fact affecting the value. It seems like straight fraud, intentional failure to disclose a material fact. Sure, it's possible that charge would not have stuck, but in theory that's true of everything. It doesn't invalidate the conclusions one can draw from a guilty plea. Recall that your initial thesis was that it wasn't part of the case at all but something Mastro himself injected.

Hey, now we're getting somewhere. This is progress. Congratulations, Peter!

Sure. But again, I'm not interested in those conclusions. I don't think they're interesting or informative at all about how the rest of the world, the people outside this hobby, would view the selling of altered sports cards.

I knew nothing about the case. I never read it. I was simply quoting/responding to whatever you said about it.

I don't see how we're getting anywhere. With any charge, of course there is always the theoretical possibility that had there been no plea, the jury might not have convicted. That's inherent in life, no one can predict with absolute certainty the outcome of a jury trial. That does not in the slightest negate the significance, legal or practical, of a guilty plea. And right, you didn't read the case, but that did not stop you from making repeated incorrect pronouncements about it. Why do you have such an incredibly difficult time just saying, OK I was wrong?

You're reverting back again to whether or not a jury would find them guilty of a charge. Again, that's not my point. He did it. He admitted to doing it. The question I'm asking is whether or not a jury would agree that it's criminal behavior to begin with. Not whether or not he in fact did it.

You keep circling back to the significance of a plea deal. Why are you doing this? This has nothing to do with what I'm talking about. I keep pointing to this over and over and you keep responding with some other point that has nothing to do with what I'm talking about.

I have no problem with saying I'm wrong. I was absolutely wrong about the details of the case before. I was misinformed and took that misinformation for granted and repeated it. I was dead wrong. No problem admitting that. But those details still have nothing to do with what I've been talking about this entire time, which is wether or not a jury would agree that what Mastro did with the Wagner was in fact criminal behavior to begin with.

Because his thesis is that this is not a crime, so if he concedes this actual real-world case, his argument falls apart. It is very important this not be conceded, because he totally does not commit this kind of fraud himself, it's his passion for completely unrelated reasons.

The jury would have been instructed very precisely on the elements of the crime as charged. It would not have been up to them to decide if it could be a crime or not, only if as a factual matter the government had proved each element. In other words, that's not a judgment for the jury, they are told what the law is. Any argument that it couldn't be a crime would have been raised by Mastro in motion practice, presumably.

It's a common mistake, but Bloody Mary was Queen Mary I of England who reigned from 1553-1558. She was the daughter of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon and she was succeeded by Elizabeth I (her half sister).

Mary, Queen of Scots was Queen of Scotland from 1542-1567.

And that is probably the least likely post to ever appear on this board :).

You make it sound like the judge is going to say something along the lines of "If you believe Billy Boy trimmed and later sold a baseball card, then you must convict him of this charge."

Here's an example of a set of jury instructions from a NY court corresponding to a criminal simulation case. The phrasing of these instructions creates multiple significant hurdles that you'd need to successfully argue your way through in order to get a conviction even on something like the Wagner case with Mastro. And it would be significantly more difficult (perhaps nearly impossible) to get a jury to convict someone of criminal simulation for something as benign as selling a cleaned baseball card.

Anyhow... How about that Morehouse Baking #151 Babe Ruth Rookie?

Rea
 

Stampsfan- Congratulations, and a standing ovation! Back to the actual
topic of the thread. This REA catalog is loaded, I've bookmarked several
items and can't wait to see how things play out. My goal is to win just one:)

Trent King

Time For A Pre-War ; return to forum focus :
 

http://imagehost.vendio.com/a/204295...AVISES_NEW.JPG


1937-1939 Cincinnati Reds Orcajo Photo Art Dayton Ohio ; some were advertising for a butcher and his side-hustle : Lard. Val Decker Lard was famous .

Currently at $505k + juice. Any guesses on hammer? $1M? $2M? $5M?

Dang I was gonna post pictures of beer cans here this morning
But thread is back on the original topic .
I’m guessing $2.4 million ,

I still don't get why this is considered a "Rookie" when it wasn't widely distributed.

I believe the Morehouse Baking set was issued during the same year utilizing the same images in the more commonly found backs of the M101-4 and M101-5 sets. Assigning rookie card status for prewar cards is still not set in stone, so I personally have no issue with the Morehouse Baking (and the other 15 or so likely regional backs from companies that utilized the same images) card of Ruth being identified as a rookie card.

Some might have a problem with that, but I think that crowd is fairly small.


Brian (the elevated value of cards considered to be 'rookie' is a such a pumped-up phenomena that, especially in the prewar realm, has never made much sense to me. But where there is demand...)

I’m not a huge fan of the Ruth. For one, it’s a black and white card and not a terribly attractive issue. Also it is marked with a stamp. Yeah I guess the usual rules don’t apply and it should not receive a MK but still nonetheless it is marked pretty much any way you slice it. The mark is also ugly aesthetically because it reads “Cancelled” which has negative connotations. Plus if you found a time machine and went back 100 years you could not exchange it for a loaf of bread or whatever the baking company was promoting.

Incredible find yes. Incredible card? Debatable. I’d be more interested in grabbing the Ty Cobb with Ty Cobb back and using the extra cash for other cards.

1914 Cracker Jack, Ray Caldwell
 

This card continues to amaze. I believe a Psa three last sold for $18,000.

Bottom line on this card seems to be it just rarely comes up for sale - and when it does, everybody needs it.

You got an extra one for me? :-)