Problem with Legendary Lot . . . Opinions?
 

First of all, this isn't a hit and run post. I do need to leave the computer for a couple of hours or so, but I will be back to answer any questions as well as to respond to posts. Here's the situation:

I won the lot of 10 Oxford Confectionery cards slabbed by SGC in the recent Legendary auction. The description was minimal, and the scans were a tad small in my opinion for what I am about to describe. When the cards came in, the four SGC 10 Pete Alexander cards all had damage that was not evident from the scans. Three of them have four small holes apiece where the cardboard is gone (not just thin spots). The fourth card has a half-inch gouge (indentation) on the front that ends in a small pinhole-sized hole. Two of the Alexander cards have scrapbook/back damage. That wasn't disclosed, but was evident enough from the pictures, so I factored that into my bid.

I called Jeff Marren (VP of Operations) today at Legendary. We spoke for about ten minutes on this. Without going into the details yet, what do you think should have been done on Legendary's part both before and after the sale? Areas of discussion might include, but are not limited to, due diligence on my (buyer's) part, disclosure requirements, if any, on graded cards, especially card graded "1", value of the lot/cards with or without the damage, obligations on Legendary's part (if any) post-sale, etc.

Like I said, I will fill in all of the details in a bit. Fire away, please!

http://legendaryauctions.com/LotDeta...ntoryid=160555

You had ample time to ask questions about the cards before you bid. Unless Legendary had something in their description that was wrong I think this one is one you.

I don't think a seller has an obligation to go into detail about the defects on a card with the lowest possible grade, as long as it doesn't misrepresent anything. If it was important, you should have asked for a bigger scan.

+1

+2. When you buy a PSA1 or SCG10, pinholes, back damage, and scrap book remnants are expected. Not trying to sound harsh, but you're always allowed to ask for better scans. Sorry.

I had been bidding on the same lot as well. I hadn't seen the lot until the last day or so, so I didn't have time to delve with any further questions, so I went with what was given.

Since you could see some of the issues on the cards, I assumed worst case scenarios on those I couldn't see which were graded SGC 10's and assumed there were other faults which I couldn't see. I think my max bid was about $1,000 all-in, expecting there could be some other issues which weren't totally clear.

I can understand where you're coming from and could see both sides - not sure exactly how to proceed, as it's a bit of a tricky one, since the scans could've been better (a Heritage scan wouldn't have this issue), but you could've asked questions ahead of time....

The scans are just small. They aren't deceptive.

It took David a couple of sentences to describe the defects. Too bad Legendary couldn't do the same rather than wax poetic about the primitive charm of the set. :D:D:D


Each card has been graded by SGC. Presented is a 10-card Hall of Famers collection of E253 Oxford Confectionary baseball cards issued in 1921. Oxford Confectionery issued this unusual and very rare set in 1921, at the same time its larger competitors were also issuing baseball cards with caramel treats. Collectors have always appreciated the rarity and primitive charm of this distinctive early candy issue. Oxfords appear to have been somewhat of a regional issue as they are seldom found outside of the Pennsylvania area. The all Hall of Famers array includes: Graded SGC 35 GD+ 2.5: 3 cards w/Grimes and Rousch (2); SGC 30 GD 2: 1 card, Schalk; SGC 10 PR 1: 6 cards w/Alexander (4), Frisch and Grimes.

Better to wax than to let the price wane.

While I go agree with others who say ask for a better scan or description if the pinholes aren't visible they should mention it.Quick question were all the scans undersized in the auction or just this lot?

oxford
 

I was bidding on this lot as well. The cards are graded so I based my bids upon the grades. If they were raw, I think you are onto something....I agree with Jay.

Agree
 

+1

If this thread was about some anonymous seller on eBay and a $100 card, the Net54 torches and pitchforks would be out.

Why is the onus on the bidder? It takes no more effort on the part of an auction house to post larger scans that would more clearly show problems on the cards.

From Legendary's About Us Page:

"Our goal is your total satisfaction with the presentation of your fine collectibles. We do whatever it takes."

I would have requested larger scans.

Sometimes you're the bug, sometimes your're the windshield...

What's the last thing a bug sees as he hits the windshield?

Just out of curiosity, what did Legendary say?

Major flaws such as holes and paper loss/trimming etc. should specifically be mentioned in an items description. Auction descriptions should aim at accuracy not puffery.

What about omissions? I'm on the fence about this one, but how hard is it for the seller to say that some of the cards have pinholes, particularly when the scans are so small that it can be reasonably argued, imo, that they were made that way to be intentionally deceptive? IMO, a seller like legendary shouldn't really be relying on caveat emptor to defend a shitty description. It's just bad business.

The cards are 1s, for gosh sake. If the emptor cares about just how bad the carnage on the 1s is, the emptor can send an email or pick up the phone.

Perhaps bigger scans or the potential bidder could have requested such as many have stated. But we are talking about sgc 10's...what was expected??

Agreed! We are talking about the lowest grade SGC gives?!?!?

I don't know how many times on this board I've read people's comments about how the eye appeal of a slabbed card with a low grade can vary so greatly. Think about how many good-looking cards you've seen in "1" holders. Now think about how many absolute dogs you've seen in "1" holders.

Making the argument that "It's a 1, what'd you expect?" actually would hold more weight if the card were a 7 or 8. If you're willing to buy cards just based on a "1" on the flip, you are going to have cards in your collection that run the gamut in both eye appeal and technical flaws.

That said, most of this is moot. The seller is a freaking auction house, not grandpas_attic on eBay. Post larger scans. It's not that hard.

David, the OP, emailed me this evening and is having internet/computer issues or he would have already responded again. I am sure he will as soon as he can.

Really?
 

Really? Ask for larger scans? These cards sold for over $150 each. I have better scans on my ebay page for a $3 John Elway card. Legendary is just too - lazy? unprofessional? oblivious? - to provide decent scans and a complete description.

Rick

I thought he had already vanished for another 3 years or however long it's been since we last saw David post. :):)

There are 1s and there are 1s. You know that Peter, so please don't pretend otherwise. Having a bunch of pinholes in a card is way different than slight back damage or other stuff that can get a card a 1. Legendary knows that too. Yet it presents the lot with scans that you would need an electron microscope to see and can't mention, on a $3000 lot, that the defects are what most collectors would consider to be among the worst defects possible?

OK. I get it. We will once again have to agree to disagree. I certainly think there could have been more due diligence on the part of the buyer, but I also think it could be argued that the scans and description (or lack thereof) were predatory. I hope it gets resolved, but I have to say that I will think more than twice before I ever bid in a Legendary auction again. That's why I think that, even if Legendary can use an ambiguous description and shitty scans to slide by (legally speaking), its just bad business.

Plaintiffs' lawyers never seem to think anyone has to take responsibility for their own actions. it's always someone else's fault. :) David is a sophisticated collector. He knew the scans were tiny and wouldn't necessarily show all defects. He could have asked. My opinion.

LOL. And defense lawyers never take responsibility and always claim that it isn't their clients fault even when it is.

Hi all. Like Leon said, Charter was down for the last 4-5 hours, so sorry about the delays. I'm not trying to be coy or shifty on this, and I will disclose what happened on the phone call as well as my thoughts. However, if if you all will humor me, I'd like to discuss this a bit and see if we have any consensus on general listing and bidding ettiquette and responsibilities/culpabilities. So I'd like to deal with some of these issues on separate posts to keep it simpler (at least for me). Also, feel free to jump in at any time even if I am not directing a question at you.
This sentiment, or something similar was posted a few times. Here are some questions I have.

1. Does this apply to any sale, including private sales and eBay auctions?

2. Is omission okay as long as there was no intent to directly deceive?

3. If you sold a card and found it had a serious flaw afterward, would you try to do anything? (Why/Why not?)

4. Is caveat emptor the rule of the day as long as the card is slabbed by PSA or SGC? What if it is raw?

Do you think it would be okay for me to sell these cards in a private transaction or on eBay without disclosing what I now know about them unless directly asked? If not, why not?

Yes. They are SGC 1s and accurately graded, and if you don't say anything beyond that I don't think that's deceptive. But if you mention one defect but not another, I think you start to cross the line.

The "enlargements" weren't big enough to see the holes. I assumed that anything that "egregious" would be disclosed. Obviously, I was wrong. I didn't go through a ton of listings, but individual cards like the E107's on page 1 all had huge scans. Some of the group lots I looked at had bigger scans. Some of the others seemed smaller like the Oxfords that I bought.

Fred, I'll cover that at the end, then we can discuss Legendary and me on our thought processes. For now, I wanted to eliminate a little bit of the personal and discuss this as if it were the proverbial "friend of mine".

So to play devil's advocate, lets say I have an SGC 10 that was ripped horizontally in the lower half, about a third of the way across the card. As it lays it in the slab, it isn't obvious at first blush in a smaller scan but is obvious when looked at with the naked eye. I list it on eBay with smaller scans. A bidder asks if there are any holes in the card that can't be seen. To gain credibility I post his question on my auction and "guarantee" that there are no holes. Am I still cool? It's an SGC 10 after all.

David -- as Robert Bork once said, just because there's a slippery slope doesn't mean you have to ski it to the bottom. :D

According to Peter, you're cool. You didn't affirmatively misrepresent anything and your omission doesn't matter. I'm sure he would be willing to represent you in the resulting lawsuit. :)

I'm more of a "black and white" guy. So to me, I believe often in arguing to the ad absurdum because it shows where a person's true principals and values lie. It's like the old joke where a man asks a woman at a bar if she will go to bed with him for a million dollars. She says, "For a million dollars? Sure." He then asks her if she will go to bed with him for twenty dollars. Insulted, she exclaims, "Twenty dollars! Just what do you think I am?" The man calmly replies, "We've already established that. Now we are just negotiating price."

Paying client? Damn straight.

LOL. Good one. But the problem with the Socratic method is that one can push virtually any principle to its extremes and find a fact pattern where it doesn't fit. But that doesn't necessarily undermine the principle.

Yep, if the client can pay to defend a fraud, that's much better than if they can't.

You can take the case on a contingency and then give the client objective advice on whether to take my settlement offer. :D

No. I would always try that case because your client is a POS and that matters to juries.

And they also see through plaintiffs trying to pin the blame on someone else, so it's back to 50-50 whether you get paid or not.

Is there any question that Legendary purposely failed to mention the holes in the cards because they knew that had they done so the price realized on the lot would have been less? Of course not.

LOL, its far better than 50/50. Try again.

As if you are objective. :)

I don't see this one as even a remotely close call, regardless of the fact that Legendry is run by criminals. :)

2300 lots. How closely do you think they looked at a few SGC 1s in a group lot?

But Jeff's alleged lack of objectivity is based on the fact that your client is a POS and there's an abundance of evidence, both objective and subjective, to support that fact.

They didn't have to look at them. All they had to do was scan them -- which they did anyway -- and post a larger image.

You can assume if a card looks VG or VGEX but is in a "1" holder that it has a technical problem that just might not detract from eye appeal even if you aren't spotting it.

It certainly looks very suspicious, but I'm not willing to go as far as to say that the omission on the condition was definitely done on purpose without doing more investigation. And even then, I still would be basing an opinion on the so-called "preponderance of evidence". Let me ask you this. What do you feel would be an appropriate response if they only found out about it on my phone call?

I don't disagree that they could have posted a larger image. But Jeff is contending they knew the pinholes were there and tried to conceal them. I think that's possible but far from certain.

:DWait I am only defending the guy in David's hypothetical, not Legendary, Jesus!! LOL

Despite the fact that I think Legendary is in the wrong here, the Mystery Theater act warrants me checking back in the morning for the conclusion.

So its uncertain that the seller knew the pinholes were there, but, based upon microscopic scans, the potential buyers should have known that. LOLOLOLOLOL. Yeah. That's the ticket.

Cheap plaintiff's lawyer trick, to mischaracterize the argument. Nobody said David should have known they were there, and you know nobody said that. Is there an opening at the White House, they could use another guy in their arsenal of spinners. :)

I don't think Legendary purposely left out the mention of the holes or purposely made small scans to deceive. They should make their scans a bit larger, that is what they are guilty of. But they are 1s, if they look too good, you know there has to be an issue. I told David what I thought before he started this thread.....and if I were the auction house would have probably helped a little bit to offset the decreased value of the pinholes.....but not a lot.

I help run a smaller auction so it's not apples to apples, but I prefer to have very large scans, which take some time to do, instead of flowery descriptions.....

Two of the cards had obvious back damage (one has 4 holes and one has the pinhole). That is a guaranteed "1". The other two have wear consistent with a good at best card, and one of them also has a stain. None of the cards were even close to VG/EX in appearance. My assumption (wrongly) was that there were multiple creases in the cards. But prewar black and white issues are all over the place sometimes on grading. I submitted a bunch of ice cream cars to SGC a while back and was stunned at how a good third of them weren't within a grade+/- of where I thought they would be. I had an SGC 5 that I was sure was a 2.

So, the long-winded answer is that I didn't see a NM looking T3 that obviously had a pinhole because it was in a "1" holder. Did you look at the scans on the link? Did anything jump out at you to cause you to be suspicious on the cards.

Peter, that is exactly your argument. BTW, defense lawyers are masters at mischaracterizing the argument, so if I have made it to your level in that regard, I take that as a compliment. What you don't like is that I phrased "the argument" more succinctly and accurately than you are happy about.

lololololol

With all the griping that goes on about Heritage, scan quality is one thing they have down pat. At least whatever they do scan is a really good scan. Omitting items might be another issue. If pinholes are within the tolerance for a SGC10, then it is what it is. If it was a SGC60 with a pinhole it'd be a different story. Bigger scans are always better though......

Good point about Heritage. Large scans ARE possible.

My argument, to repeat, is not that David should have known there were pinholes, but that he knew that the grades were 1s and that the scans were tiny and that there was no description, SO... if it was important to him to know WHY they were 1s ... he should have asked. It's that simple. I think there are still circumstances where a plaintiff is held to a duty to investigate, although they may be dwindling. But let's put it in a different framework. Normally, in an omissions case, there is a duty to speak only to make something actually said not misleading. Basic fraud law, right? So what did Legendary say here that made it misleading not to mention pinholes?

Your assumption was reasonable. It would not have been difficult to identify the pinholes-- I searched their auction using the term "pinhole" and found 19 lots where that term was used. Granted, almost all were raw cards that perhaps merit a more thorough description, but 2-3 graded wrappers included the term in the description. I also noted a lot of 12 T205s where the scans of individual cards were larger and appeared clearer than these Oxfords.
I believe it a fair question to ask whether these scans were shown as they are on purpose and whether the omission of the pinholes in the description was deliberate.

Note the date. Lichtman and Schultz on the same side of an argument.

I agree. Everybody loves REA. They are the laziest with scans out of any auction house. Quality material with horrible small scans. I guess they only have a year (well now 6 months) to prepare scans...

By the way, to clarify . . . what I am calling holes/pinholes are pinhole width, but are as long as 1/4" (more like a razor blade cut in shape).

I'll post what actually happened and what was said by noon CST tomorrow. I'll also post my thoughts about this specifically and in general so we can have something to argue about the rest of the day tomorrow.

Uh, no. There is also a duty not to mislead by speaking half truths, a duty not to fail to inform when you know what you have said may have been misleading, a duty to disclose based upon a relationship and superior knowledge, etc. Misrepresentation, deceit, omission, non-disclosure and concealment are all types of generic fraud. That's fraud 101

Agree 100% it takes two seconds to put up a good scan and all this drama goes away.

Heritage for example may be slow on shipping for some but those boys know how to put up a proper scan when they list an item.

This is not quite the same, but I have a feeling you may have been treated the same. Many years ago I bid on a rare vintage program in a Mastro auction. I was willing to pay whatever it took to win it as it was pretty much one of a kind and I wanted it for my collection. I won it, of course at my high bid. Anyways, I received the program only to find out the entire 8 page program was torn in half through the middle of the program. You could not see it in the photos because the tears lined up almost perfectly and nowhere in the description did it mention this or any significant wear. I was pissed. I spoke to Doug Allen about this and he basically said, "Oh well, you should have asked more questions prior to bidding". This entire thread basically overstates my opinion of that answer. I wanted the program as it was pretty much one of a kind, but thought I paid significantly more than I would have if the program would have been accurately described. I will admit that they did offer to re-auction the program, but I wanted the program even with the tear, but obviously thought I was getting screwed. Bottom line is Doug Allen said, "We will refund you $100, take it or leave it". I took it as I wanted an example of this program in my collection, but it left a very bad taste in my mouth and I got my first example at how Mastro and his crew did business. Some may say I should have re-auctioned the program, but I chose not to and I still have the program. I did choose not to do business with these people anymore nor give them any material to sell or referrals . Not sure how your issue will turn out, but I will say this "when you deal with the devil you are bound to get burned". I hope you get treated better.

I know. I'm thinking of having myself tested. I'm hoping it's just the stress of the Holidays.:)

You know I enjoy a good thread like this every day of the week but if the cards are SGC 10's you know something is up with them.

Yes the scans should be bigger but you felt comfortable at your price level and since you knew they were 10's, you could have figured out (You are a smart man) that something else was wrong with them.

Could you post the cards with the updated scans so we can all see what you are talking about. Otherwise there is no visual evidence

Rich

Agreed.

There is some culpability on the part of both parties, but the onus falls largely on the auction house. Sure, David could have called and asked some questions, but he shouldn't have had to. The description, along with the scans, should provide all the information a bidder needs to bid confidently. Could you imagine if every bidder had to call to ask for a better description of lots? It would be a fiasco.

One of my hobby pet peeves (I have many) is the way auction lots are written up. I have never seen worse writing in my life than lot descriptions. Hundreds of useless hyberbolic words, numerous convoluted and hard to follow sentences, when a simple "SGC 10 with pinholes" would tell the bidder pretty much everything he needs to know. But writers of auction text gobbledygook have perfected the art of obfuscating any information that would adversely affect bidding. I hate the wordiness of these catalogs and I'm sure many others do too. Just write short, clear, and precise descriptions and move on.

LOL! Like Memory Lane.....BID TO WIN! GET IT! OWN IT NOW! They are so short, I love seeing what new things they can come up with in 4 words or less!

Slippery slope. Pinholes were not the only problem. Is Legendary supposed to go through every single card in every single lot and describe every single thing that anyone could possibly consider to be less than perfect?

You stated in an earlier post that you thought SGC overgraded one of your cards. Did you return that card stating that you thought it was over graded? If so I will not continue to LOL and take you serious.

They should supply all the relevant information possible, and leave out all the unnecessary background noise. In the time it takes them to compose all that flowery verbiage, they could point out the pinholes and have some time left over to work on the next lot. Yes, pinholes are an integral part of the lot description, IMO. We're not talking about a surface wrinkle in one card that they may have missed.

Isn't the determination of what is relevant, relative. A missed surface wrinkle on one single card might be extremely important to a specific bidder depending on what that bidder's thoughts are in regards to a cards specific and acceptable defects. That surface wrinkle might not matter to 25 bidders, but it could matter very much to that 1 single bidder.