Dave, Good points but also back to another problem I found about " reserves"
I had consigned a few very high ticket items (Not Legendary) and I also wanted a reserve (sorta high) placed on the items. I was told that most auction houses dont like reserve because if the reserve on that item was possibly put to high then all the work that the AH did for you I.E. photos taken , descriptions written by staff, room taken up in the catalogue etc. would be lost if the item or items didnt sell. I found out that they would rather make something in and out (buyer ,seller) than nothing... on your dime!!

guess it got taken down?

Thats EXACTLY where i was leading..... i bet no one paid for a single one....

I think it was a joke....just look at the URL :)

well heritage lets you do a reserve but you pay them a percentage or something if card doesn't sell.....some auction houses make you pay 20% on the highest bid if card doesn't sell...that way you wont have an unrealistic reserve and waste their time..

Let's say Mr. Goldbrick consigns an item with mr maestro, who wants a lower minimum bid than Goldbrick is comfortable with. Mr All-in suggests that a friend could bid to the minimum in Goldbrick's comfort zone. A bid in the name of mr spacecadet is then made.

Mr. Spacecadet then wins the auction. Spacecadet then pays mr maestro for the item with fees. Then Spacecadet returns the item to mr Goldbrick, who reimburses him for his costs and thanks him.

Mr All-in is IMO guilty by suggesting the scheme. Mr Goldbrick is perhaps negligent in retrospect for playing along. Mr Spacecadet is not guilty. The outcome pleases all parties. No names ever appear on a "shill" list nine years later.

I would suggest that this scenario occurs more frequently than many of us would imagine. This scenario would also fly under the radar and would be deniable by all concerned.

You may be correct now but back lets say several years ago most auction houses frowned upon reserve...

And also if you were one of the ones on the "Special Packages" list I bet you didnt have to pay a dime!

The $7K goes right back to you, the consignor, You lose the $1.4K AH fee but may get $3K more later.

It's still shill bidding if you pay the BP and buy your own item back. It seems like you're all saying it's not.

-Ryan

For those that are wondering why anyone would buy their own card rather than it selling low, here is how it works. You bought a card for $1000, and now you feel it is worth $10000. You decide to send it to an auction house. Many auction houses will waive the consignor fee on high profile items, and will offer to share a percentage of the buyers premium with the consignor as well, for ease of math, let's say half. So the auction is closing, and your card is going to close low, so you buy it through your buddy at $5000. You now pay the house $6000, and they cut you your consignment check for $5500. You now have a total of $1500 invested in the card. Had you not bought the card and it sold to someone else for $5000, you would have made a profit of $4500. You didn't let it sell, so you consign it a couple months later, this time it sells for $7000 (same terms). You get a check for $7700, a profit of $6200. That is why people buy their own consignments instead of letting them sell low. I have never consigned a card, I don't have any of the big dollar collections, but I can figure out the "why" of it. This is in no way meant to condone any practice, I am just trying to clear the reasoning up. It is purely based on profit margins. I am also sure that, as an apprentice collector, I still don't understand or explain here all the nuances involved in the business end of this (I haven't even mentioned how setting historical sales records come into play as a reason for buying your own card), but I think my example paints a fairly accurate picture. Please correct me if I am wrong. No opinions of anyone listed in my post, per the rules. :)

if the BP is 20% and the shiller is paying that I have ZERO problem...20% is going to prevent a lot of shilling..plus if someone is willing to pay 20% to keep a card...it must be going very under market price...I would bid at AHs with no problem if they said 'Shillers welcome but they must pay the 20%' BP

so if I bid 1000 and I get beat out at 1010 and that guy keeps his card but has to pay $200 to keep it..good for him...

if someone wins their own 1952 Topps PSA 8 Mantle..and they think 375,000 is too low and want 425,000 for the card..let them pay 375,00 to keep the card and pay a 70,000 BP...good luck to them there as well....I just don't seem them shilling that mantle that high..they would have to stop at at about 275,000...

the problem is when they don't have to pay a BP or its 5 percent etc

You don't know this though. For AH's may give a portion of the BP back to the consignor (as well as waive the seller's commission) for large/loyal consignors. So for all we know, these consignors may only have had to risk a 5% effective (complete guess) BP through their shilling.

So does Mastro and his cronies have to pay restitution to these customer who where shill bid against? This really weakens my faith in these auction houses and the bottom line is they make money off the juice from these sales.

Right my scenario is if 20% is paid.....I would bid at AH's that say 'shilling Is allowed subject to 20% BP if win item'

Which ones are those?

I talking about now and the future...if an AH was to say that I would bid with no problems... I already said the problem with the people saying in the past they would pay the BP if theywon their own card is that may only be a paying a few percent BP if that on their own cards..they think the fact they paid BP absolves them.....if it was 20 percent I would tend to agree...but I know its unlikely....but for the future if an AH makes you pay 20 percent I am fine with 'shilling'

The Daily News chimes in
 

And for the dentist
 

I hope dentists where you practice are better than Dallas Dentists

http://interactives.dallasnews.com/2...try/part1.html

This is must reading for anyone with kids who need to go to a dentist

Rich

Thats a terrible story, Rich. I'd avoid going to a general dentist who took a weekend class on sedation offering coupons.

I was lucky, when I was at Beckett, most of us went to a specific dentist. That dentist ran into some real problems.

I somehow avoided him and ended up with one of the best perios in Plano,.

And then when I had to get to a general dentist as well, I gave him the list of the then approved dentists from my insurance company and he told me whom to go as; He's a decent dentist and the best of this bunch. Perios usually know whom the good dentists are because of all the work they do on gums.

Rich

Dentist classes via coupons reminds me of when I was in a lobby browsing a magazine for professional women that was filled for ads for vasectomy services and how to become a life coach courses. It confirmed my worst fears.

I did a pretty quick scan of the list. In the instance where Mastro is the shill, like on most Fritsch items...is the theory that Fritsch was involved, or that Mastro took it upon himself to shill...especially if he knew the bidder had deep pockets and interest, like Hal Steinbrenner?

In many cases a consignor seemed to have a common and designated shiller. But in the cases where Mastro is the shill, I'm just wondering if his greed is u fairly reflecting on a legit consignor...or if pretty much everyone on the Consignor/Shill list is a bad apple to be avoided.

Bravo!

And I would add a special raised middle finger to those gutless hypocrites who had friends bid with Mastro or Legendary Auctions for them while publicly decrying the fraud problem.

NO ONE deserves to be a victim of fraud or to be cheated period.
IMO if you continue to do business with people who you know are dishonest or have strong reason to believe are unsavory and find yourself a victim, the biggest thing you have to complain about is your lack of self-control.

Unless of course you're part of a group of stamp dealers that colluded over large lots offered at auction over several years AND were dumb enough to put the agreements in emails and/or written letters. Then fired an employee who wrote many of the emails and letters and who delivered copies to the authorities after his firing.


Yes, that actually happened and a number of people got into a lot of trouble.
http://www.ag.ny.gov/press-release/s...stamp-auctions

Done verbally between friends it's probably way too hard to prove in most cases.

I did however see it caught at a live auction. One bidder in the front row turned to his competition and said "let me have this one and you can have the next" Right within hearing of the auctioneer. :eek: The auctioneer stopped the auction, gave them a stern warning that he could lose his license and they could be arrested and that if they wanted to make deals they should do it outside before bidding. The the item was restarted at the former high bid with the offender getting credited for the next advance which he never made. The third bidder came in then, and got a quick thank you and the lot eventually sold for around $40 more.

Steve Birmingham

So, let me get this correct:

- Auction house owners don't want to have open reserves because it will look bad and hurt future business if any/many lots go unsold. So how does going to prison look for future business ventures?

- As for consignors, if I am to believe that they actually paid the BP for any of their items that they ended up being the high bidder on, how can it be a good business decision to pay 20% BP on your own item instead of letting it go for a little less than you had invested into it? I know it depends on which is greater, the BP or the loss? But if you "bought" your own item back, you still have it and have to try to sell it again later.

- For those caught this time, but only once, really? This is just the data for a single AH over just a 3 year period. Imagine if it were opened up to all AHs for the past 10-15 years? Just this once? Just like the drunk driver that was caught and he says, "this was the only time I drove drunk". Yeah right.

- Can you imagine what it would look like if you could get this type of information for eBay:eek::eek::eek:

With over 500 posts it's really clear to see that this stuff affects us all about getting ripped off. My opinion as far as the ones on the list from PSA coming on here and voicing there opinion on why they are on the list is slim to none. Anytime anything has come up involving PSA or JSA on anything I have never seen anyone come on and defend themselves. Which shows me they either don't care what people say on here as long as they are raking in money or they just think we are just a bunch or winers and it's not worth there time. Just my opinion. I have read 90% of the posts so if I missed one of them coming on then I appologize.

Right. There is some other prominent example too that I cannot think of. PS I have actually seen an email from a prominent collector to several other collectors who were bidding on similar items looking to allocate certain cards in an upcoming auction so they would not bid against each other. It probably happens with some degree of regularity.

Fair questions. I've stayed quiet on all this but I've decided to put in my 2 cents. As one of the older collectors in the hobby, I've been been bidding through auction houses for over 30 years. Yes, I've suspected shilling was taking place and hated it, but there were veteran collectors bidding, suspecting shilling yet continuing to bid because the final winning bid was a fair one, or even a good deal. So the answer to your question is, yes. I have won a number of cards through Mastro over the years and I know I paid too much, but sometimes you just gritted your teeth and accepted that you got what you wanted at a price you considered reasonable.
With regard to the names of the shilling list, I spotted names like Peter Calderon whom I consider a friend and whom I have always trusted and respected and others that I consider hobby friends who I have had private selling experiences with that were good and fair transactions. I also saw a few others who I considered to be arrogant a@@holes whom I disliked for their attitudes and lack of character. and anyone who knows me well knows exactly who I am talking about. I had no surprise seeing their names pop up on the lists. A real mixed bag.
As far as the post about the collector who taught the students about card collecting and the hobby, my suggestion would be to quickly point out the true hobbyists and collectors who are absolutely great people, great to know, great to deal with, and great people in general. I have met (many in person, many more through Net54 and its predecessors) so many collectors and collector/dealers and dealers over the past 30 years that I know they are the backbone of the hobby. All ages, all backgrounds, all over our country. Tell your students about them. They are the REAL reason the hobby survives.
Finally with regard to SGC, I am one of those collectors who was sickened by the Forman revelations, not because I expected more from him, but because I have a huge number of pre-war cards in SGC holders. I always liked the customer service, the way the cards were displayed in the holders and what I felt was more accurate grading of the cards than other TPG companies. If SGC goes away, I'll still have the cards (and I always bought my cards for the cards not the holders anyway) and they will still mean the same to me, even if the prices might dip without the company in existence anymore. I also have a large number of PSA cards and I always knew that a PSA 5 would bring more than an SGC 60 in the pre-war market but that's life.
Finally, I realize that there were different reasons for the shilling, sometimes it was out of business greed, sometimes because of events like divorces which eliminated collections and forced sales, friendships, etc., but it still didn't justify it. For those who posted and explained why, I'm willing to accept it and go on, we all make mistakes. But it wasn't right.
Cheers
Bob M.

Let's simplify this
 

It isn't rocket science. It becomes real when they start naming names.

Realize the list is after the evidence was shredded and represents couple of years worth of auctions about 8 years ago. I seem to remember getting those catalogs all the way back in the 1990's. If you think this didn't happen before and after those dates and still happens every week on eBay, stick your head back in the sand. It would be scary to get that information from eBay across the last 20 years.

Also, for the group that says "I don't have a problem with that". It distorts pricing across the whole market.

At the end of most auctions, that email goes out stating "over X million sold". Or "highest price ever for X". They have a vested interest in higher sales. The grading companies, same thing. PSA XXX sold for some new high...

It is a thinly transacted market (pre war). Some cards may have 1's or 10's data points a year (or less) of pricing data points (I don't have a membership to VCP but that would be an interesting stat to gather on the # of data points/year for some of the commonly shilled items).

Paying a BP (on a shill in the scenarios provided earlier) to get a 50%-100% bump in price makes perfect sense when the market always goes up and you could protect your investment to sell higher later.

Does everything always sell for more, no. I've had mixed results. I would expect that. But I don't have friends protecting my investment.

Does it happen 100% of the time, no. But it is much wider than the glimpse that was provided in that list.

Will it stop me from bidding on cards, no. So ultimately, it won't stop until all the money stops flowing on cards at AH or brokers on eBay that are even suspected of participating. This information is years old and Legendary was still getting lots of activity and high prices all the way to the end.

My two cents... It has been a fascinating read...

Rich McGillicuddy

When I see one of those "Let's share an auction lot" posts on Net54 I feel like that also falls under collusion.

i always kinda felt that way too...although it'd be a lot easier if u just wanted a card or two in a big lot!!!!

We've discussed it before, and it's subtle, but there is a difference between pooling resources to win a lot and then divide it up (ok), and colluding not to bid on items at all so that others can win them (not ok). It's like the difference between a buyer's coop and buyers colluding to fix price. You have to look at each set of facts on its own merit.

I know that's why most do it here, but I think it's close to the line of collusion. Clearly there are a lot of dealers here who would like to buy the whole lot and part it out. Sharing the lot most certainly lowers the pool of interested bidders.

But on the other hand...it seems lots where groups "collude" seem to sell at higher prices as individual collectors are usually willing to pay more for a card they want/need...and not have to deal with reselling the rest.

Right. Think about it from the perspective of the consignor. If you have, say, a high grade low pop common that only a few guys are in the market for and they get together and say Joe you take this one we'll stay out and wait for the next one, the consignor is going to be livid. If you have a large lot with cards that appeal to different guys, who might not have bid at all because they don't want to pay for the whole lot and have to sell it off to get their one or couple of cards, then the consignor would be delighted if they pool their resources and bid even if it's collectively, because it's another bidder in the mix and probably one who is going to go pretty high.

I have passed on countless numbers of lots because I only needed a few cards and the price wasn't worth it. If the cards I want total $30 and the lot is selling for $50, why would I bid on it? Doesn't make sense.

So, I don't think it's colluding at all when a group of collectors get together and buy a lot and then distribute the lot among each other. Most of those guys would have never even bid on the lot if it was just them bidding on their own.

I was at a live auction where two people start out bidding against each other, and then one stops and they split the lot. The auctioneer was ticked off. BTW, both of those people are on the list in this thread. One works for a major auction house, and one is involved in a grading company. I am not going to name them, as it's hearsay, but I spoke to the auction house owner afterwards and he confirmed that it happened. Definitely collusion.

How would he know? He is familiar with both of them, their bidding patterns, and they were sitting next to each other, when they spoke, and one of them stopped bidding. BION

There are cases of bidder collusion to suppress bidding and there are cases where a group of collectors each of limited financial means and collecting needs going into together/pooling together their funds to get a large group lot. Two different cases, and the latter may in fact raise the final winner price. The latter can allow bidders of limited financial means and specific collecting needs to enter the bidding where, due to the largeness/variety and expense of the lot, they would pass on the lot on their own.

I attend 50-75 live auctions per year, there are 4 dealers who are constantly colluding with one another. Lots of times it's to share a lot and other times it's an agreement to not bid against one another. They almost always come to me to get me to try and "share" with them when it comes to certain items like postcards or Husker football memorabilia. There is only one reason they do this. To save money. The auctioneers know this is going on. I have even had conversations with them and they know who it is and they know when it's going on. They don't do anything about it I guess because those 4 dealers also happen to be their best customers.

My suggestion may of been over-simplified, and I can understand why some of you are worked up. I've been about as vocal as anyone against shilling and retractors. Reference my post in June of last year (not sure how to link posts).

Quote:
..."Exactly. REA/Mile High/Memory Lane/Heritage/H&S....all have one thing in common; proprietary bidding software with no transparency. If you want to make an argument about shilling, start their first"



Everyone of us has probably been shilled, some of us multiple times. It's too dam easy for these scum to do this via the internet bidding platform. IMO, shilling is still rampant at AH's; less so on e-bay.

Here's my mental health bidding tips; just my opinions, as I'm primarily a buyer:

1. Assume your are going to be shilled if you bid at an AH. Place your bid as if your going to be shilled; makes your life so much more enjoyable when you win or lose.

2. If your max bid wins an auctions and you think the underbidder is a shiller, don't cry sour grapes, see rule #1. Lower your max next time so your competing against real bidders, not shillers.

3. Learn to enjoy coming in 2nd. I'm an aggressive bidder on cards I like, but I come in 2nd a lot. In all likelihood, shilllers have won several of these auctions, which is just fine with me as long as they paid the commission. This is a hobby, not surgery. If you bid enough, you start to get a feel where shillers will bid.

4. Follow up with your AH policy on reserve bids, consigner won bids, bid history, etc. Hold them to the fire, ask for clarification in writing. Read their fine print. Do nothing verbally.

5. Do not ever say the market was artificially inflated when your bid wins an auction and you may of been shilled. See rule #1 and 2. If your max is what you are willing to pay, then you just set the market my friend.

6. If anyone associated with your AH is on the "list", stay away.

Does shilling suck, yes. Is it illegal , yes. Did the shiller drive up the price, yes. Do you want to get heart disease stressing about shillers? No. Do you have countless free hours to go after these bastards, hire a lawyer and go to civil court? No. Then bid what you think the card is worth, then move on and let the shillers rot in hell. that's my point

Shill shillery shill shillery shill shill shillroo!

I still can not understand the rationale of combining different items together into one lot. A good one recently (about 1-2 weeks ago) really ticked me off. A 1971 Padres team-autographed baseball was combined with a 1975 Reds team-autographed baseball. I collect Padres items, and was very interested in the baseball, but I'll be damned if I'm going to pay a premium for it because I'm also forced to also be bidding on a 1975 Reds (World Champions) baseball!

Steve

Resellers like everything but the kitchen sink variety lots (at bulk discount), collectors don't. My scenario #2 allows the collectors to join in on the bidding-- which is good for the consignor. Resellers like the lots because they break them down and resell at markup the smaller pieces to the same collectors.

And I agree that scenario #2 may point to the auction house bundling together the items poorly. Pairing a Madonna autographed corset with a 1957 OPC hocket set may not be the optimal pairing to maximize bidding.

"I don't know. There's this guy in Toronto."

Are you sure it wasn't just a lazy seller using a pic of both baseballs and only selling one of them? :D

Why take a C Note when I can take two

will said

Also remember that Mastro was taped as saying (according to him) that most of the high grade cards in holders are altered. I, for one, think the whole high grade section of the hobby is a farce and a crock.

In psychology there is a concept called swarm intelligence. I've often said that humans often exhibit swarm stupidity.

when you're dead
 

- you don't know it. It only bothers other people. It's the same when you're stupid.

Now that is funny.

+1

Closure?
 

It's been pretty quite y'all. Do my fellow collectors feel, as I do, that we need some closure on this episode? We haven't seen many step up and take responsibility. There have been some serious charges leveled against TPGs in particular. Although millions are at stake for them, I see no response. As a small fish, why should I put in a $100-$300 plastic order with TPGs any more? As a non-dealer, and therefore a potential victim of shilling, I am feeling pretty bad about buying any card over $20 and the hobby in general. I feel like focusing my collecting on low-grade and cheap cards. Do other hobby collectors feel this way?

other Forum-censorship
 

If anyone have the time check out the air waves of the other Forum. They are refusing to post the List and saying posting of list breaks forum rules and denying members access to the list (with great reason). The Mods are out like secret police and the backlash is will noted. The last comment from a Mod in response to a question as to why does a Card forum have a on-going discussion about this and allowed to post the List. Trying to quell the restless, the Mod implies that Mastro was more of a Card auction house and the scandal is more isolated to cards vs game used items. Hilarious. The posts of the members sound like the disenchanted populous before the Revolution.

Can't wait for the next Hauls Of Shame. Should be a good one.

Dan Knoll worked for SCDA a game used authentication company. He appears as a consignor/shiller 97 times.

Here's an interesting thread from 2007.

http://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=86809

You put in a link and many (as I) lose about 5-10 minutes of our lives reading old posts. That said there is a lot of info on the board and some of it is interesting to say the least....

btw, it is ok to mention CU here....or whatever you want to with your name by your post.



.

We've been complaining about the censorship on the CU board forever. It's not going to change, from their perspective as a publicly traded company there is no upside to allowing controversial discussions that might reflect badly on PSA.

What's Nash going to say?
 

"Can't wait for the next Hauls Of Shame. Should be a good one."


I think he should say my stuff may have been fake but at least I wasn't a shill bidder. Honestly don't give a rats arse what grandmaster b has to say about it. I am sure it will mostly be about the one freaking lot where Rob's name appears as a consignor. Too many people give him way to much credit. This thread was a much better read than however he will spin it.

I'm not so sure he was referring to CU, he seems to be talking about game used items. That's why I referred to Dan Knoll, a game used authentication expert being on the list about 100 times and then posted a link to our forum from 2007 in which Doug Allen and others (including me) extoll the virtues of Knoll.

My statement was more general but see Peter S response right above for the reason on CU. .....Game Used Universe, you can say that too.

It's been so long since I've been to GUU that I don't know how they moderate over there.

Oh my misunderstanding. In any event the general observation about CU is valid.

I posted the link and thread over in the SGC forums on the 29th..no responses from anyone and only 24 views and has one of those emotion-icons noteing it as important.
Depiste little to no activity at all for years there, you know some folks read it.

I got sucked into that 10 year old Hal thread for over half an hour.....quite the rabbit hole, indeed.

I've been thinking more about the "consignor/shiller" aspect of this list. I wonder if it's unfair to not have the entire auction's results in front of us while making judgements. Considering this list came directly from a piece of scum, isn't it possible he twisted it to make certain people look worse?

Let me give you an example:

I've always been into older game used bats, but I have a small budget. I like to put bids in on items I like when they're absurdly low, just as a way to watch. So it's no big stretch to assume I put 15-20 low bids on bats in each of these auctions. Usually, before the auction closes, I'll bump up my bids as much as I can, only to watch myself get blown away. Once a year or so, I'll actually win one!

Since the bat world is/was fairly limited at the time, let's suppose it's not a stretch to think that one guy consigned many of these bats. Thinking back to the biggest bat guy back then, a man I have nothing bad to say about, let's call him "Dave."

So in the records you will see many instances of "Ke.n Su.lik" bidding and not winning. If most of those items were consigned by "Dave," it would be very easy to create a partial list that only shows when Ke.n Su.lik has bid up--but not won-- items consigned by Dave! Especially when you DON'T list the items that I bid on from other consignors, nor do you list items I actually won and paid for.

Viola! Ke.n and Dave must be in cahoots as shillers!

It's the government's list, which Doug published for whatever reason. His own list is also included in the same pleading.

OK, thanks. It's still incomplete, though.

I have been wondering about this since the thread started. His lawyer filed the document as an exhibit (one of many) to his sentencing memorandum. I understand his desire to address the restitution issue, which was his reason for including it, but the list easily could have been filed under seal, so that it wasn't available for public viewing. What possible reason would Doug or his attorney have to make this public? Do you think they just didn't realize the storm it would create, or figured that no one would go digging through the exhibits and find it? Or was it an "I'm going to take everyone else down with me" mentality? Or something else? I certainly don't think it did the client any favors in the realm of public opinion by exposing the list.

I have the same bewilderment. My cynical view is that he wanted to take others down, but I don't know. He could not possibly have thought it would go under the radar.

who cares why..i think everyone (non shillers) will agree they are glad its there

It's just so hard to say. I know that when I file sentencing memoranda or similar documents (yes, I'm a defense attorney, everyone fire away!) I wouldn't necessarily share the specific documents with my client ahead of time for him/her to review, although they would of course know the substance of what I was doing. And I'm sure that not many of my clients, even the more sophisticated ones, would understand how the federal filing system works or realize that something like that could be downloaded online and disseminated immediately. So perhaps it's just a case of attorney inadvertence in filing something publicly that he probably shouldn't have, and that Doug didn't specifically know about ahead of time. But there are many possibilities.

Dan yeah anything is possible but that's a pretty big thing to have done inadvertently for an experienced attorney in a case where many filings are under seal. If I had to bet I would bet that Doug wanted it this way.

Well my point wasn't whether people are glad it's there (which I am). My point was just that it was very curious that this document just now gets released publicly many years into the case, and that it was released by Doug's own attorney. The timing is just interesting, and I was wondering out loud what the strategic advantage might be of that particular course of action.

I have for quite some time. I find it far more enjoyable to own a run of lower grade cards than a single high grade one. Actually, if you like cards of the 1970s, there hasn't been a better time to collect them Even really nice 6-7-8 cards are going for less than the cost to slab them.

+1. A joint effort is the only way I can get in on one of those ridiculous AH mega lots. If cheap enough I will buy a hundred cards to get five, but if not, I have to pass entirely. I know for a fact that these sort of joint bid efforts raise the hammer prices on lots because I've lost out on certain items that were underbid by the group that would not have been bid at all by the individuals involved.

I have sat back and read this whole thread and followed the Mastro proceedings since it began. I am not a big money guy so I never had the opportunity to bid in a Mastro auction so I really have no dog in this fight.

I do have to say I did bring a few quality items to Mastro at one of the Chicago National conventions which I thought would do well in their auctions but was literally laughed at by Doug Allen and told they don't deal with such small dollar items. Now these were very old, highly collectible items I received while working in Major League Baseball that I since sold for well over 1K each without having to give anyone a cut of the take. I just thought the treatment of a small collector by the big auction house was less than professional as Doug didnt need to laugh at the "low dollar" items I had but explain how it really was not worth their time.

Ok I will stop rambling and get to my point. My point is that I think the only people that are effected by this case is those with pockets full of money who can purchase these high end collectibles. The average collector was frozen out of most, if not all of the Mastro items and therfore was never effected by the shill bidding issue. I think the backbone of this hobby, the average collector IS and will continue focusing on lower grade sets and cheap cards because that is what they can afford. I know I gave up a long time ago trying to purchase one or two high grade cards when I realized I could build whole sets for what one high grade card will cost me. I agree with Mooch here in that true collectors, not investors will continue to purchase these less expensive cards and be just as happy with their collection. When collecting raw, less conditioned sets it is pretty safe to say rarely does shilling happen on a ex-mt raw 1963 Pete Richert card.

I think there these other message boards have had zero to no response to this issue because this issue does not directly touch the average collector. Seems to me this Mastro issue is rich people problems for the most part.

what is 'cheap' sometimes becomes more expensive....1952 Mantle PSA 1s 3 years ago were a loot cheaper then they are now..

I do enjoy though in the past buying cards graded where the grading costs had to be more than the card...

Andrew -

One quick look at the list of shill bidding will make it apparent that your statement isn't correct. For example, look at all of the pricing of the items from the Feb-09 auction.

And this shill bidding affected pricing across the entire hobby. It doesn't matter if you were a Mastro bidder or not.

Bill

Would it matter if low grade collector got shilled $50 and Mr money bags got shilled $500?

I can't believe some of the posts here that because it affects 'big money players', its fine, they deserve it, and all the better for the Lower grade collector.

In my opinion, I don't care of it was $1, ONE time. It isn't right, and people should be held accountable.

It has been brought up a few times that this ** pathetic crap ** only effects high end collectors. I do agree that is the case in most situations. HOWEVER, I do also believe :rolleyes: it does effect “us” lower/middle end collectors in many situations:

Say someone was to bid on a lot of 500 middle grade, raw T206s. He wins the lot at $10,000 (which is in the “big boy” range). That's $20/card. If he's a dealer / flipper (which is fine), he could sell them at $25 a card and make a decent profit. And a buyer would be happy at that price.

NOW, say he was shilled up to $12,000. Then the cards are $24 each. He would then have to pass that “bump” onto his buyers. So, now, he's selling these “shilled” cards at $30 each.

You can say “only $5” difference. BUT it adds up over the long run of anyone's “low to mid grade” set. As well as, if not worse, giving a false, inflated worth of the cards (just like the “big” cards).

IMO, everyone's screwed. Very sad, indeed.