Originally Posted by Steve D (Post 1497013)

Here's my take:

If there had been, say, a $2,000 reserve on the lot, and the highest bidder bid $1,500, everyone would see that the set did not meet the reserve. This could be attributed to either the reserve being set too high, or there just being low interest in the set at that particular time. As it happened, a "shill bid" was placed for $2,000, to match the "unstated" reserve. This led people to believe the set had sold at that price. This is the lie, that the set sold, when it actually did not; and this is where, in my opinion, the main problem lies. It results in false price information being released to the public, and a false value being placed on the item. The set may later exceed the value that was falsely reported at that time, but there is really no way of knowing what effect the false info had, even if there are years between the auction in question, and the actual later sale.

The safest and best way to proceed is to set a reserve (if desired), and let the bidding determine if the reserve is realistic (at that particular moment in time). Then at least, if the item does not sell, the public has accurate information to use, in later placing a value on it.

Steve

Originally Posted by Fred (Post 1497067)

After reading through this document I felt like I wanted to puke. WTF!

How do they know that those on the shill bidders list actually shilled the auction?

Can we assume that each of the victims were notified?

Was any restitution paid to the victims by the shill bidders or Mastro or Allen?

OMG - how much of those auctions were actually legitimate? Based on all the shill bidding going on it appears that many items are probably a bit inflated in value.

Is anything going to happen to the other shill bidders listed?

Originally Posted by Rich Klein (Post 1497078)

Peter Nash must be smiling, rubbing his hands and getting his next column ready

Did anyone notice in the 2002 auction Rob Lifson's name was posted. Now I know that things have evolved since then but that was fascinating. I repeat something I was thinking after Rob's Friday night announcement in his blog about retiring. I just found it strange a story broke on a Friday night. Usually in politics, if you want to bury a story, release the news on Friday Night.

If it's good news, release the story on Monday Morning about 9 AM

TJ Schwartz's name is posted as well as well -- he writes a column for SCD called on your side. HMMM

Peter Calderon (now at Heritage) is also listed as a shill bidder.

These are just some of the quick highlights as I don't have the eyes to read through every name.

Originally Posted by Fred (Post 1497084)

Pete,

Perhaps I chose to "ostrich-up" and pretend that this stuff doesn't really happen in a hobby that's brought me a lot of joy. Yes, I've been reading about this for a while but when you see a fact base document from a court of law it's hard to keep your head buried.