The difference to me is that inflated fixed prices are rampant, people tend to ignore them, whereas in the context of an auction, bidders (rightly or wrongly) assume all bids are made in good faith and not for the purpose of sending a false signal to the market.

So if I saw a BIN of 130 I would probably think oh eff the seller, whereas in an auction if I saw the current bid at 120 I might well think oh the price of this card is going up I guess I should go to 130.

I changed my mind. I don't care if you know my name. It's Travis, but most people call me TJ. I just updated my profile with the cryptic version of my name so nobody thinks I'm some shill or something like that. I don't work in the sports card industry and never have. I'm just a random collector like most everyone else.

In that scenario, it sounds like you are manipulating yourself.

Sometimes I buy stuff, sometimes I win stuff at auction. I know what I am willing to pay for something either way, and while I seldom or never have bidders' remorse for spending too much, I frequently win stuff for less than I had decided I would be willing to pay.

Maybe it comes down to fiscal discipline?

How have I manipulated myself, I don't follow? How am I supposed to know the difference between a card increasing in value with a good faith bid at 120, and a bad faith bid at 120? I'm not omniscient.

So your name is TJ Troll?

In your example, you won't pay $130 for a card (eff the dealer, you said) but then you would turn around and spend $130 for the same thing because of your convoluted thought process.

For me, if I would go to $130 in an auction I would pay $130 and get it from the dealer.

I'm changing my assessment based on real time information, that is the 120 bid which I presume to be in good faith. Before that bid I had a different valuation. This isn't rocket science and my thinking is not convoluted at all.

In your example, the shill bidder is signalling the asset is worth $120. YOU are the one coming up with the $130 price.

It is convoluted to say $130 from a dealer (also a real-time offer) is too high, but the same price for the same item is not.

Once I see the 120 bid, I am indifferent between winning the auction or the BIN. You are unfairly comparing my views in different timeframes.

Shorthand for the next bid level. I wouldn't mind paying a few percent over what I thought was unmanipulated market, but would mind paying 30 percent over, which is what the 130 represented prior to the bid.

LOL, That is what I seen at first also. Here I thought his name started with a M.;)

Peter, don't disagree with you at all, but at the end of the day, if all those people went ahead and ended up bidding more for those cards than you, then isn't that in fact what they ended up being willing to pay for them, which to me is the definition of true FMV? No one twisted their arms to pay that much, did they? The fact that you put in higher bids yourself, tell me, had you ended up winning one of those auctions wouldn't you have paid for the card? I'm sure you would, and probably stopped there and quit bidding any more on that card, right? Now, while you had helped to raise what people would pay for that card, you did nothing wrong or illegal either. Plus, there's no guarantee that you'll profit all that much when you go to sell because all those buyers now had the card they had wanted so chances are they wouldn't be out there bidding on more of them, and you wouldn't still be bidding your own cards up in price. The demand may have dried up some, but at least you actions showed what others are willing to pay for that card, which is a truer indicator of that card's FMV, at least at that point in time.

And isn't manipulating consumers to feel that the perceived value of an item is more than it really is a major, accepted part of business and marketing? Just look at how much more brand name items usually sell for over generic/house brands, yet in many cases they may all be produced by the same manufacturer. Or from the sports side, are the basketball shoes endorsed by a particular superstar really that much better than, and therefore worth so much more than, another pair of BB shoes that doesn't have to pay a superstar to advertise them?

Not saying it may not seem morally deficient to some to try and manipulate prices like you suggested, but it happens everyday in the marketplace. So I hate to say it, but it is up to consumers to educate themselves and determine their own value for things and what they are willing to pay for them. As it says on the BST forum, caveat emptor.

Valid point.

So Bob and Mark, were the victims of shill bidding in Mastro at fault themselves for overpaying?

Are you yet again trying to put words in my mouth? I repeat, shill bidding is not okay. Please stop putting me in a position of having to defend my integrity (this time vs. Bill Mastro's illegal activities.)

In general, and this applies to everything, from cards to non fungible artwork to houseboats: If someone voluntarily pays some amount for some non-essential item, then, by definition, they are voluntarily choosing to pay that amount for that item. "Overpaying" is defined by the bidder, who is voluntarily choosing to pay that amount.

Is a dealer offering the card in your previous example for $150 being fair? Is the guy who buys it "over paying?" I say, that's for the buyer to decide. If he thinks the price is too high, walk away.

Stop overreacting, I never said you condoned shill bidding or questioned your integrity, I am asking from a price perspective if you think the winners were manipulated or manipulated themselves. In my example where I was shill bid you said I manipulated myself, so it's a fair question.

What about price-fixing, Mark? Prices for some non-essential good are fixed by the two dominant firms. People voluntarily pay the inflated fixed price. So was it a market price or a manipulated price?

If someone had access to bidders' secret maximum bids and manipulated them upwards, that would be a completely different scenario than what we have been discussing, and that would certainly result in artificially inflated prices.

Why? They paid voluntarily. Nobody made them leave a ceiling bid.
But beyond that, that describes only a small part of the transactions identified in Mastro. Most were people placing bids with the intention of driving up the price and, allegedly, as a result the winners paid more, just like my example where you said I manipulated myself.

Why isn't someone placing a bid in my example with the intention of driving up the price and making me pay more just as artificial?

You can defend Mastro if you want, but I think driving up someones' bid when you have access to their ceiling bid is very, very wrong and would result in artificially high prices.

LOL now who is mischaracterizing? Defending Mastro? I am simply trying to understand your position using the Socractic method. I am not defending ANY of it, I think it's all manipulation in case you didn't notice. A comment really not worthy of you, Mark. Surely you're a better debater than that.

I would agree. That would be one of the most egregious acts an AH could commit.

Could and did at least in some cases.

Yes I know. But your invoking the name of a convicted criminal and then trying to put me on the defensive with it was the first salvo. :)

I've stated my opinion; to restate would be redundant. And I agree with what Bob said too. If people will pay a certain price for something, then that is what the price is that people will pay.

OK I think we've had a good discussion, but if you want to have the last word, my final point would be your reasoning is circular or maybe just tautological.

Maybe take all of this who can argue best, misuse of logic, and Maestro stuff to a new thread... Argument Digression might be an apt name.

Please... back to PWCC. THAT is some news. I've bought a few cards from them (maybe I should say got tricked into overpaying for a few cards). Getting this out there was good for the board and everyone, thank you Peter. To a slight extent I'd usually be conservative in my bidding with them because of that crap where they were "protecting" us bidders by not disclosing identifying info (I can't recall how that eBay label read...). I thought that was a bit of BS that invited or masked shilling, and that was before the "Vault" crap. Only two steps remaining for PWCC was their own auction house and their in house grading company. Golly, a fella could buy a card and pay them a commission, then get it graded and pay for that, then 'Vault' the card and pay for that. What a deal!!!

Peter,
I ask this as an honest question - no snarkiness, I promise, just curious...

You have an awesome PSA 6 53 Bowman Ford for sale on the BST page. You have had several very nice examples of cards over the years that tend to be at the top of their grade. Your 54 Bowman Williams comes to mind. I don't tend to buy fixed priced items because I am convinced that I am usually the fool overpaying. Therefore, I buy through auctions. In some cases, I end up paying more for the auction item (versus the fixed priced item) - or pay a tad less for a copy that is not as nice. Hopefully I am not shilled, but more than likely, I have been victim over time.

But I digress...

When you determine prices for your items, do you pull out PWCC comps? Do you have a general formula? Again, no offense meant. It just seems that it would be impossible to price an item without taking the PWCC prices into consideration and not have it immediately purchased and be considered a bargain for the purchaser.

LOL. No. That's an 'a' and an 'i'... Trail, as in hiking trail.

No set formula. Case by case and some is by feel, but if I didn't have a good feel I would typically look at past sales to get an idea, if PWCC prices were obvious outliers I would not give them any weight. Sometimes though I go more by my general perception of how much the market for a certain type of card has gone up or down since I bought it rather than relying on direct comps.

Thanks - makes sense and I appreciate the response.

AUCTION INTEGRITY & OVERSIGHT
Safeguarding the integrity of bidding on our auctions is our highest priority, as is the assurance that every item we broker is accurately described and authentic. For the trading card marketplace to function effectively, honesty and integrity must be ensured. Collectors deserve a bidding environment that is 100% legitimate and free from intervention by the auction house, submitters, friends of submitters, friends of the auction house, or anyone else who seeks to exert artificial influence over the sale price[/B].

From their own website! :mad:
They have so souls...

Their hypocrisy knows no bounds

They’re in high speed damage control mode.

I wonder who is or will be sending them cards for their auction site ??

I sometimes wonder if he isn't delusional to an extent.

There may not be a better way to do it. Who knows what went on at times, and I don't doubt that there are highly questionable "sales" of higher-end items (especially with examples like the Floyd Mayweather card that Exhibitman showed earlier).

But I'll share the one auction lot I won from them this year. Final price was at the very low end for centered PSA 9s, and it's obvious from the bid history that there was no shill bidding.

So either my auction was a rare outlier (and there is some huge boiler room concept happening where endless people frantically kept track of everything and ensure that artificially high prices are always being created), or mine is similar to countless other nice (but modest) auction items that were ok, and the focus of any shenanigans was usually on a larger scale.

I would guess the latter.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/353540601951

A lot of their stuff is fine. Lots of honest collectors consign to them and even some honest dealers. It's the dishonest dealer and card doctor consignments where all the BS is.

Peter, I agree with you wholeheartedly that that was wrong. However, by doing what they did, it ended up showing what many bidders had set as their max amounts to pay, which I think is a more accurate indicator of true FMV for a lot of those items being auctioned. I am definitely against shill bidding and market manipulation as well, and only reference it as it tends to end up showing the max amount someone was willing to pay. Do not condone or support any of those shenanigans at all.

The difference I'm talking about relates to differences in how people perceive FMV for a a particular card. It seems that a very common, accepted thinking is to look at recent past auction and Ebay data as current market value indicators, which it most certainly helps point to. But I'm also saying you can't just look at the last auction sale and emphatically state that is the current market for a specific card. There are too many variables, as I've already alluded to in previous posts, and that the majority of thinking seems to base a card's value not on the most someone will pay, but the second most someone who just happens to be participating in that particular auction will pay. I don't feel that thinking is all that accurate, plus by following that thinking it makes someone more susceptible to being taken in by the adverse effects of shilling and market manipulation.

Another thing with the recent surging in card prices is the volatility in prices on almost a daily basis it seems anymore. So to base decisions on past transactions may not be that smart. I think about how they price gasoline at the pump. My understanding is the price you pay is what they expect it will take to replace the gallon of gas you just bought, and is altogether not based on the actual cost of the gas you just pumped. So if you know someone was willing to pay $100 for a card that recently had a reported sale at $50, that might prove helpful in knowing the next time that same card comes up for sale or auction. Doesn't necessarily protect you from shill bidding and market manipulation, but at least gives you more information on which to decide for yourself what to pay for a card you are interested in.

I've never said being manipulated into overpaying for a card at auction is right. But it doesn't change the fact of what someone was willing to pay, which indicates what their perception of a card's FMV was. I feel you have to look at your own finances and card needs/wishes in deciding what your own perceived value of a card is, and bid/pay accordingly. Go back and look at that recent thread about the M101-2 Sporting News Supplements in the last Memory Lane auction about some truly head scratching prices paid to see an example of what I'm talking about. Can't believe those are sustainable prices given my knowledge about that issue and what else is out there, but can also believe many people just looking at those most recent sales to determine FMV will believe those are now gospel. I am strictly a collector though, and these flippers/investors taking over the market have their own needs and ways of looking at things such as FMV, and good for them. I have already concluded there are a good many sets I'll never complete now because I won't pay the asking prices today of many of the key cards I'm still missing. Time will tell.

Except that after that sale occurs, that buyer is no longer in the market and the “price” becomes what the next person will pay. And now we are back to the auction scenario of second highest bidder plus one increment

I had a conversation with Al Crisafulli a couple of years ago, we talked cards, family, market, etc. just a random phone call from me during the day which he answered personally and took the time to talk. During that conversation he explained to me his limitations as a collector while also being an AH and the boundaries he couldn't cross, my takeaway? This is a man who has morals, integrity, and trust. Based on that conversation I would not only trust him with my money, consignments, etc. but I would also invite him into my home.

He also said I should be committed to an asylum for trying to build an E98 master set, I didn't disagree...

Exactly. But from the sound of this thread, you'd think it was much more widespread than that w/ their auctions

Why is FMV in your example only defined by the one human being willing to pay the most? Suppose a card in auction where one guy puts in a ceiling of 100, the next highest real bid is 50, and the auctioneer drives it up to 100. Nobody else on earth thought it was worth more than 50. So did one guy, assisted by the criminal auctioneer, now define a new FMV?

Multiplied by their thousands and thousands of listings, it adds up.

I see your point. In theory, replay that auction with the high bidder out of the picture and the top guy left is the under bidder.

Now, I have something else to consider regarding market "price" vs. market "value." Suppose you consign a card to an AH, they charge you 10% commission. High bid is $100, so the bidder pays $120 with the 20% BP. The price to the buyer is $120, but the net value to the seller is $90. So what is the value of the card? According to this auction result, you can get $90 for it.

I think some of you guys are overstating the impact that shill bidding actually has on the broader market. I hate shill bidders just as much as the next guy, and it obviously costs people more money sometimes, but I disagree with some of the narrative here regarding how much it actually influences market prices overall.

When I determine how much I'm willing to pay for an item, or how much I'm going to sell one for, I base those decisions on how much I predict the next one will sell for, not how much the last one sold for. For high pop count cards, this is pretty simple. I just look at recent sales and throw out any outliers (which I assume most people do). So for a Mike Trout RC, that's not exactly difficult to price. But for something that sells very infrequently, I do more research and I build out regression models and forecasting models that take into account other similar cards. But I'm also a math nerd. But I think most people do something at least somewhat similar that yields directional accuracy even if they lack the necessary skills to build forecasting models. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that if the last 10 sales of the card you want to buy are $100, $105, $97, $108, $110, $94, $27, $102, $101, and $278, that something abnormal happened with the $27 and $278 sales and to discard them as outliers. The $278 was probably shill bid or a fake sale, or someone thought it was a refractor when it wasn't, something like that which makes it an outlier. Some disingenuous sellers might try to point to the $278 saying, "the most recent sale was $278", but people aren't stupid. Any statistical model worth its salt is going to predict the hammer price on the next one to be about $100 +/- $5 or so. The sale that was shill bid up to $278 is going to have almost no effect on the market as a whole. That doesn't mean that all shilling has no effect. Surely it can and does, but for the most part these sales are outliers and people know to discard them.

I think there is a disconnect though regarding the extent to which people think shill bidding occurs and the extent to which it actually occurs, or rather the extent to which it actually affects the outcome of a sale. The vast majority of sales are not affected by shill bidding. Even with the consignment companies like PWCC and Probstein. Sure, there's no shortage of consignors who shill those auctions, but not nearly as often as most people seem to think. I've consigned probably 1,000 cards or so over the past 2 years and I could probably count on one hand the number that had to be relisted for non-payment. Granted, I don't shill my auctions, so it's not a representative sample of the entire consignment market, but it does shed light on how small at least part of the problem is.

I think most people who shill bid on their consignments probably treat it similar to a 'reserve' price because they don't want their card to sell for less than its true market value, which as others have pointed out above, can often happen with auctions. Believe it or not, Probstein sales are flooded with examples of cards that sell well below market (as well as many that sell at or above market). When he has multiple examples of the same card (say 12 Zion Williamson PSA 10 Prizm RCs) he often lists them all to end at the exact same time. This is a terrible selling strategy because it often forces buyers to choose which one they want to try to win rather than giving them a shot at all of them. I remember last year wanting to buy a card that he had 8 of, all ending at the same time. It was a fairly common card with a well-defined market value of around $300 at the time. Knowing I could probably get one below market because he had listed them with this strategy, I decided to place a bid of $250 on all of them in hopes that I might get at least one at a bargain. I ended up winning 6 of the 8 lol. The next week, that same card was back to selling for $300 again.

As far as market impact goes, a shill bid has no market effect unless it succeeds in getting a buyer to pay above market prices for something. If the last 4 sales of a card were for $100, $110, $95 and $105, and the next one receives a $90 shill bid placed on it, it's not going to impact the overall market at all. It just serves as a 'reserve price' on the item. If someone shill bids $150 for it, they will almost always just end up "winning" that auction instead (usually at a market price bid of ~$100-110). Very rarely do they succeed in getting someone to pay $150 for a $100 card. And even if they do, again, the market generally recognizes this sale as the outlier it is and discards it when making future purchasing decisions.

The idea that the entire market is somehow pumped up by these outliers or that even the majority of PWCC sales are artificially inflated simply is not true. Probably over 98% of PWCC/Probstein auctions get paid for. The primary reason PWCC gets higher prices for their cards is because they have more eyes on the listings. It's not because of shill bidding.

Travis, redo your numbers by dollar volume and not sheer number of sales and see what you come up with. Even if your numbers are right, and I doubt it, they’re misleading because the vast majority of cards are relatively inconsequential. It’s the big cards where the shenanigans are.

Frank, sorry for one more response to Peter.

Peter, you and Mark going back and forth about running up bids, and what difference it makes if a person's max bids are known are i think very different issues as well. The idea of bidding someone up is a little like playing poker where I'm trying to bluff to win the pot. I assume you'll eventually get scared off and fold, and I win the pot. But if you have a decent hand and don't take my bluff and end up calling me, I'll likely lose, and it will end up costing me what I had put into the pot. That is simply considered gamesmanship and an accepted part of poker. Kind of like if you try bidding someone up, and they suddenly stop bidding. You now end up overpaying for a card you never really wanted.

Now assume in that same hand I somehow knew exactly what cards you had, and even though I had a nothing hand myself, I knew your hand was even worse. So I again go to bluff you out of the pot, all the while knowing that whatever you do, I'll still end up winning the hand regardless. So now I have no fear of chickening out and letting you bluff me out of the pot, or of losing it should you end up calling me. Now that is outright cheating and illegal. And to me that would be the same as shill bidding in an auction where I know your max bid. I'd bid right up to your max amount, and then stop. I'd never have to worry about winning the auction by accident, and you'd end up paying the max amount possible. Again, cheating and illegal.

To me, that is a huge night and day difference between the act of shill bidding someone up.

Didn't say it defines it, just that you need to consider it as maybe a more true reflection of FMV, as opposed to simply accepting the underbidder as setting the market value. There's no way to know that high bidder is a sole outlier, or if for whatever reason a number of serious and financially capable collectors who maybe wanted that same card as much as, or more than, the evental winner, didn't even know of the auction or couldn't participate in it.

Peter, in your example when you say no one else on Earth thought that particular card was worth more than $50, you are literally assuming that every person on the planet looked at the auction, and passed on that card. I would guess that most auctions have several hundred to maybe a few thousand bidders in them, at most. I would speculate that not every auction house or dealer has access to every possible collector that is out there. Heck, I've been collecting for 30+ years and can't begin to tell you how many auctions I've never looked at or bid in, and I know I'm not alone in that. So that is why I'm saying past auction sales can be a good indicator towards what a card's current FMV is, but shouldn't always be taken as the only major component or as a sole final answer. You even responded to someone on how you set prices for cards you put on the BST forum and said yourself you don't just look at recent auction sales, so basically we have agreed all along. Just maybe a differecnce in the weighting of factors you may choose to look at. Again, to me the definition of FMV is what a willing buyer agrees to pay an unrelated and willing seller for an item in an open, arms length transaction. Not what an underbidder was willing to pay in a particular auction.

Except maybe not every potential buyer was aware of or participating in that first auction. Or other bidders in that first auction were focused on other cards then and next time would focus on the particular card in your example. Or who says that first buyer didn't feel they got a bargain and goes after the same card again in the next auction (lots of collectors have multiples of the same card). And so on and so on...........

I think typically people consider the value of something as what they pay for it, not what they net from selling it. Market value and market price are kind of the same thing. You're talking more market price/value versus net price/value. In your example the value of the card would probably be defined as what was paid for it......$120.

Good analogy. I definitely agree. While both are illegal, there's a big difference in my eyes too between someone who shill bids their consignment with what is effectively a 'reserve price' and a seller like 'aj_wag' who shills people up to find out what their max bid is, then cancels his shill bid and then with 1 second remaining, shill bids again just below the other person's max bid to extract maximum value from them. He's basically looking at his opponent's hole cards. The fact that this behavior is even possible, let alone repeatable across hundreds of listings by the same 2 accounts on ebay is either mind-blowing incompetence or intentional enablement/looking the other way by eBay. And the fact that this behavior is allowed to continue despite people repeatedly reporting them for it (everyone here should report 'aj_wag' and his 'rywag123' account BTW) tells me that it's much more likely to be the latter than the former.