If this board were a band, this is definitely where we'd break up.

What are the odds that the one and only time someone shills an auction they get caught???...:)...

The consignor obviously would have preferred a reserve, as it would not have cost him thousands of dollars not to sell his set, as it turned out, but he was told the option was not available. So he took the instruction of what was then still a mostly highly respected auction house as to an alternative. Sure everyone can sit in judgment now. Whatever.

Random Thoughs
 

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.

where have u been fred...these discussions have been going on for a while...and there was a long thread last year urging people to write letters to the judge prosecuting mastro to try to get restitution or a longer sentance.

meh never mind

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.

In similar news:
http://www.blowoutcards.com/forums/m...ardsniper.html

Arizona Diamondbacks closer Brad Ziegler recounts how and why he shill bid auctions through Probstein on eBay.

i know what you mean...now its all too real!

And what about Dave Forman's involvment...the thread about PSA or SGC going under doesnt seem all that implausible any more??

I mean with beckett owning their own auction house and grading company...Tpg'ers are printing money and double dipping in the profits...this is scary!

Over, at least, the last 4 years I was advised and urged to not make a post like this so this comes as a great relief to me that I can finally write this. There is nothing noble in my decision to do this since my name is out there as a consignor with Mastro and associated with items which were identified as shilled but I feel I owe an explanation to those who were harmed and to those who call me a hobby friend. I made a mess so I have to clean it up.
During roughly 2005 to 2009 we consigned a few hundred thousand dollars worth of material to Mastro. Our consignments generally consisted of our more expensive inventory since that type of material did not seem to do as well on eBay—our only other outlet for retail sales AND auction houses like Mastro seemed to be setting record prices. At some point after less than stellar auction results and being completely incensed and frustrated, we decided to protect items rather than allowing them to sell below what we felt were fair values.

At no point did we ever conspire with anyone at Mastro on those bids. We never knew who was bidding on our items or what their bids were. I have no recollection which of our consignments I was the one to place a bid and which my former business partner bid on but since he is no longer here I have to take responsibility for our actions. Sometimes a top all would be placed and other times we would bid incrementally so as to not open ourselves up to being shill bid, as ironic as that might sound. In each instance our bids were made with the intent to buy back the item and a willingness to pay the buyer’s premium, as we did each time we bought back a lot. It did not feel right doing this but I never thought of it as being illegal.

Not to make excuses but the practice described above, of protecting a lot, was very prevalent at that time even among collectors. I will not call out anyone by name but some are current posters here who would frequently ask me to bid up their auction listings on eBay. I now understand why the government considers this shill bidding however our intent with Mastro was never to defraud anyone but to simply protect what was ours. Obviously we should not have consigned if we were not willing to accept that our items might fall far short of our expectations. I cannot take back what I was a part of but I can be a better person going forward. I am sorry to those I harmed and to those who I have disappointed.

As a side note the list may not be as accurate as the government might think. There are a couple errors that I know of in regards to items identified as my consignments according to my records.

Greg

And then when he got caught lying about why he shilled, he ran away with his tail between his legs and refused to post anymore.

Okay Peter let me get this straight - You helped your "Friend" Ron Gouldberg by placing a reserve bid for him, and if I'm reading this correctly, in Auction #43, lot #1039 he returns the favor by shill bidding you up over $17,000 for an item he submitted to Maestro?

Wow. Perhaps you should re-think your definition of friend.

Patrick Prickett

Some very random thoughts here

1) Kudos to Leon for keeping this thread going. I know many of the names on the list are advertisers and he's willing to let this be noted. You can disagree with him on many things -- sometimes just to be a contrarian (Marquard) but instead of hiding this information he ensured it came out.

2) I see named like Brian Bigelow on the list. I've known Brian for more than 25 years and he may be the finest hobby writer around. Brian was working for Mastro at the time and I would wager he had an account that was used for various purposes.

3) I always say, if you bid in an auction, Bid up to whatever level you are comfortable at. Period end of sentence. Even if your bid gets pushed up, you are still at a good level. What's not good is when we all get excited and then push ourselves up in the spirit of competition. The last time I checked: "It's only cardboard"

4) And everyone who accepts monies from people on this list for advertising if they have evolved and moved over or moved on. I understand totally. One has to stay in business and advertising money is how they do that. Sounds hypocritical but just a realty

Regards
Rich

PS I think I'll go back to my vg-ex cards now :)

WOW! Looks like pete's off the hook!!!

Patrick no, that's one and the same with the auction where Ron used my account to place a reserve bid. The only place his or my name appear on that list.

My mistake.

Sorry.
Patrick Prickett

Got mega-rich by suing Big Tobacco. Didn't need to shill. Should be in jail. :mad:

Thanks for the warm fuzzies. Lift rug and keep sweeping .

Before my current scan of this post I noticed the views are at 16,495. I have to wonder if that is a single day record for views.

As for the list of shill bidders, I am elated for the most part. The one exception was the last name of Steinbach. I remember speaking with Don Steinbach the day before he passed away and I remember he and Pat Quinn with their ads in the SCD. I always wonder how it may have turned it if Don lived, but the memory is simply tarnished. It hurts to see the last name on the list of shill bidders. I always enjoyed dealing with Don.

Is that receptionist related to Mastro's former business partner back in the 90s who passed away?

Point taken Peter; and that is where Doug Allen's feet need to be held to the fire. At least in your case, Doug appears to be the one spearheading the illicit activities. It, perhaps, does not fully eliminate the consigner's or your culpability, but it would serve to mitigate it.

Steve

Now that's funny!!

So, if we are looking at this from an original Hall of Fame induction angle as opposed to the Beatles, does that make Yoko Ono Babe Ruth? Oh, no! :eek:

Do you think a column in a spreadsheet is the gospel? I'm going to bet that Don Steinbach's widow was not a hobby arch villain, although you've already condemned her.

Didn't see your name anywhere in that doc, Brian. No surprise.

After reading through that list how are there not more people going to jail here? There are instances of consignors with hundreds of items being shilled by the same shill bidder. For instance Dan Knoll has the same shill bidder (Dennis Beechy) on all 97 of his consigned lots.

From post 211

To Craig Schwartz,


"In each instance our bids were made with the intent to buy back the item and a willingness to pay the buyer’s premium"

Is that what you call a good business plan? What about the consignment premium? Didn't you have to pay that also? Doesn't that mean you'd have to purchase your own item and pay out about 30% (or more for both the buyer and sellers premiums) just to have the item consigned in the auction?

Here's the ebay definition of shill bidding:

Shill bidding happens when anyone—including family, friends, roommates, employees, or online connections—bids on an item with the intent to artificially increase its price or desirability.

I'm not a very smart person, but doesn't what you indicate constitute "shill bidding" if you apply the ebay definition? :confused:

Still haven't heard anyone dispute anything about the list. Only silence from those identified. There have been two people to step up and post here regarding their inclusion on the list. Both of them have admitted they were guilty. Not one person has disputed it. So, for now, the list appears to be pretty accurate. The list is Jose Canseco. No one wants to believe it, but it's starting to look more and more correct. Now all we need is Kevin Keating to testify before congress and point his finger at them while he angrily declares, "I have never shill bid in an auction. Period!"

-Ryan

That's really nothing new. Prob is a shady shill bidding fool. Has been for years, which is why I don't participate in his auctions.

Bill,

Sorry if I offended you, but if you go back and review, including the background information of the person who reviewed and prepared the information, it seems to be a document that has been prepared after a lot of due diligence. I would love to be wrong, but the work that has been put in seems to be pointing in a direction I sincerely wish it would not. Is it possible a dummy account was put in Steinbach's widow's name? Yes. Either way it tarnishes the memory of Steinbach. The question now is whether there will be a lawsuit against Mastro, Legendary or both now or in the near future.

:):):):):) Now that's funny.

When my wife and I were taking adoption classes a few years back a guest speaker who was a recovered meth addict came to speak to us. She had cooked meth with her children in the home for years and exposed them to horrible risks. After losing her children she got her life back on track and after about 5 years she got them back. Everyone gave her a standing ovation. I just sat there and wondered where the standing ovations were for all the good parents out there that had never abused their children to begin with!

I have no problem at all with the outing of the bad guys in the hobby. None at all. It might not be a bad idea to also give some credit to the large number of collectors, dealers or auction houses who's names were NOT on that list but active in the hobby at the time as well.

Maybe we can wear a badge at next years National :)

Can someone answer this; Is shilling against the law, and if so, can someone post that law here or reference it? We all know it's wrong, but what does the law say.

http://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=90180


been discussed ad nauseum

[URL="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/26/arts/trials-begins-in-art-forgery-case-against-knoedler-gallery.html?_r=0[/URL]

And it's only going to get worse for AH's. This case may establish liability for AH's that sell forgery's and fakes.

Thank You. Good reference.

I guess Peter J. Nash and his Hauls of Shame site is running a little behind this bit of news. I was also surprised no mention on the site of REA being sold. Did something happen to him?

I admit that I was relieved not to see that the names of the people who I deal with more or less regularly.

Exactly. It's pretty easy to remove emails from a database, for inactive, dormant accounts... or whatever qualification you'd want to put on the selection criteria. As an IT guy, we do it all the time when refreshing non-Production data from a Production database. This is so people don't receive emails from Test (non-Prod) environments and think the emails they receive are real.

Wonder what if any affect this will have on auction houses from here on out?
Most likely none, but lets see.

I have had some email conversations with Rob and I agree with him that I probably should have phrased differently

I do want to say I pointed out in his case that 2002 is far away from 2016 and the split with Mastro may not have occurred year. I don't remember off the top of my head when it did, But there has been an evolution in Rob since the split. It was just interesting he was mentioned but that was 15 years ago and REA did pioneer must of the updated auction software to prevent things like this from occurring.

There is also the matter of who released this information and how and why it was released. *Note -- not the government releasing*.

I will continue to disagree with him that his retirement is not a hobby news story. Look, when you are the head of the most esteemed auction house (look at the REA threads on this board) and the auction carries your name, yeah it's kind of important when you pass the baton. I know Brian, I bought stuff from Brian when he ran Sterling and he was great to deal with. Brian will do fine and I wish Rob all the best in his retirement.

This whole sequence of events is probably just coincidental but an interesting way to start 2016

Rich

PS Peter Spaeth emailed me and asked about why I did not mention Dave Forman -- I pointed out I glanced at this list and did not cover every name.

Someone asked if the victims have been contacted...

I'm on the victim list and have never been contacted.

My son's mother :mad: What the hell was I thinking :eek:

I think the key word is ethics in this statement. Lawyer......ethics............ethics............la wyer.

Just when I was warming up to you Pete......... Please tell me that you're not a family court lawyer though. Then I could care less. Those are the ones that directly piss me off the most.

I think you can basically now be known as the Jason Giambi of this site. You admitted it and thus will take less flack. You will also be commended for owning up to it rather than hiding behind lies. It will be a mute point, it will all blow over. Now I'd like to know who the other's are on the site that aren't owning up !!

I am completely baffled by this:

"Sometimes a top all would be placed and other times we would bid incrementally so as to not open ourselves up to being shill bid, as ironic as that might sound. In each instance our bids were made with the intent to buy back the item and a willingness to pay the buyer’s premium, as we did each time we bought back a lot"

Are you saying you placed a card(s) in an auction and placed a top all bid on that lot so you would win the auction no matter what? What possible purpose does that serve? You lose out on the buyer and/or seller commission and have to pay for the lot?

On another note, I would also suggest "protecting" a lot would be the same as "shilling" a lot. It may have been common practice, but it was unscrupulous.

Auctions have an inherent amount of risk associated with them, protecting or shilling lots removes some of that risk but at the expense of creating artificial, public prices (as mentioned by several other previous posters).

Rob G$theil

Does anyone think there is a possibility that the Fed's may look into bidding practices/records of current auction houses, that are run by people who are listed as shill bidders?

I'm stunned by some of the names on the list, to say the least.

Tony

What a shame.

As someone who prefers business be left to it's own as much as possible, these auction businesses show the need for regulation/enforcement/oversight...at least more so than has been in the past

Has this been answered? It's a long thread so I may have missed it.

Yes, Dave Forman is the owner of SGC, he may also be President but I am not sure. He and his brother Steve are identified on the list in several places.

ADDED I have not looked up the lots so I don't know the answer to the second part of your question.