Auction Letters - BEWARE
 

I now have 2 auction letters from Mears that have been rejected by JSA - even though they came with a JSA auction letter 0ne was a Ruth and the other a Mel Ott signed sheet - read the the fine print

Regards Frank

Auction letters, what a clever idea, originally I believe started by PSA.
They should be called "another way for us to stick our hands in your wallet."
Can you post pictures of the items?

I would have to surmise that both a Ruth and the Ott would cost anyone a tidy sum. As such I would ask if you as a buyer and also a dealer, spent the time and effort to do your homework before making your purchase or did you rely on the word of the auction house and also that of the opinion letter they were offering with the item.

It is becoming a bore that so many "experts" that come here, complain that they were taken advantage of when dealing with ebay and other auctions.

I would think "we" would know better

Jim Murphy

Yes, if you read the fine print it becomes obvious that the typical "Auction LOA" is worth less than the paper that it is printed on.

On both purchases - I relied on Mears and JSA - while I think I can easily pick ouy bad ones - I did only glance at the screen and both looked good - after recieving them Spence came to my shop to do a large group of auto's and said the Ott piece was off but the other NY GIANTS on the sheet were good Ott was added as a decoy to enhace the value - Ruth auto looked perfect to me on the image - signed and dated on a postcard - from Brooklyn - Problem was Spence told me he had never seen these pieces even though it accompained his auction cert - If I have pictures of these saved I will add them to my next post

So what can you do?
 

You can not return to Mears can you? or can you?

I returned them for full refund

Not bad
 

Well at least Mears did the right thing.

My apoligies, not sure what the hell happened with this post. "This computer sho' gone crazy"

:eek:The piece has his cert but he never saw it?
Works for me :confused::confused::confused::eek::eek:

I followed that string and was thinking this is the most ridiculous form of "post padding" I've ever seen. Thanks for the laugh. :)

The stuff on here the past week about Spence on another post and now it sounds like it might be starting here you would think the guy would respond to all the bashing everyone was giving him. I know if my name was thrown through the mud I would defend myself.

Don't be qiuck to blame Spence - auction houses are taking advantage of using jimmy's name - he may look at 10 boxes of stuff and didn't see 2 others - and they include auctions letters for everything - because they think their experts and assume it's going to pass.

Regards

Auction Letters
 

Frank,

Not quite sure why you decided to post on this matter, is there an unresolved issue? Jimmy or his staff reviews each item in our auction. For higher dollar items, we request the full auction letters are produced.

I am not exactly sure of the month, maybe last June or July, when you received items with JSA Auction letters, that when shown to Jimmy for full upgraded letters, there were rejected.

When asked what happened, Jimmy rightfully replied that they had never been looked at.

Although an embarrassment to our organization, Jimmy (JSA), was correct. During the summer, we hired two new writers. They missed the protocol and automatically listed every autographed item with a JSA letter.

Both items in question were under review by Jimmy, and we were informed of that fact. They should not have been included in our auction.

When the incident was brought to my attention, a full refund was immediately issued. Additionally, I sent Jimmy a written apologize and had the individuals responsible call Jimmy and apologize, as they should have known better.

As a direct result, one MEARS staffer is now made responsible to check, double check, and then triple check that all items listed in our auction were inspected by JSA.

There was no excuse for the mix up, and I have personally apologized to all involved. Since the summer and my constant monitoring of the autograph process, no similar instances have been brought to my attention.

I just felt that I needed to clarify that in this particular instance, Jimmy Spence and his company, JSA, were not responsible for this mishap.

For our customers that have continued to support our auctions, I am very confident that there are no other instances similar to this to report. We were able to go back and cross reference JSA's approval list versus items sold. There were no more discrepancies to report.

Furthermore, any items purchased from MEARS Auctions with a JSA auction letter that would be found to be issued in error (hope there are no more!), would be subject to a lifetime money back guarantee.

When the two above issues were brought to my attention, a refund was immediately sent, protocol adopted, and apologies issues.

Respectfully,


Troy R. Kinunen/MEARS

Thanks for the reply Troy. Now had the seller on the card side done the same in a straight forward manner as you have that thread wouldn't have reached 350+ posts and counting.

Seems to me the OP was properly taken care of in this matter and makes me wonder why he posted in the first place.

Disclaimer: I am not connected in any way to Mears; don't know Troy; and have never bid on any of their auctions.

I have to agree with Jack here and I have to respect Troy's reply and his immediate attention to this matter months ago. If this matter was resolved months ago what was the point to this particular thread.

Posted it because we have more auction letter rejections and i'm sick of it - HEADING READS BEWARE AUCTION LETTERS - if we all let this continue the hobby goes down the shitter - why should more buyers be burned - maybe they don't understand how these letters work - I never mentioned but i will now - i have 2 baseballs same auction same problem - and i know it's continuing to go on with many aution houses - they should step up and supply a full letter - if i didn't think the auto's were bad i'd still be walking around with an aution letter and my customer would and should hold me reasonsable. Isn't this forum meant to make everyone aware of issues.

deleted...
 

I just deleted about 6 of your posts that had gone crazy. Obvious system glitch......Please continue if you would like to....It might have been your computer or our s/w......(they were fragments of sentences for anyone that didn't see)

The auction letter was a PSA invention, designed to pick the wallets further of collectors who buy items with auction letters. An auction letter means little in the after market.
19% buyers premiums plus pay the 3rd party authenticators more $$$ if you want an official LOA for your item.
Good luck with all that.

I can definitely appreciate that.

This is not meant to be an endorsement, just a statement of fact, but there is a major auction house out there that does not use 3rd party authentication and its top two officials know more about autographs than anyone at the 3rd party authentication companies. Kudos to Josh Evans and Mike Hefner,from Lelands, for that fact.
A huge advertising budget has helped make the 3rd party companies what they are today. And look at what has happened. One controversy after another.

Same here Frank. My only thought is that a "generic" warning would have alerted us to this problem without mention Mears. Post just came off as a slam against this one particular auction house.

I appreciate this post....
 

and am glad you started it. I was unaware of the difference and potential problems. I recently (this week) inquired to an auction house about one of their current items and it comes with the "letter". He actually explained that it was not the "full letter", so between them and Frank heres post I have become enlightened.

I echo your comments, Shoeless. I don't deal with any auction houses myself, but I have been educated and enlightened today.

Anybody think 3 card monte when you read this thread?

If one relies solely on a third party, whether he be a simple collector, a dealer, or a full-fledged auction house, he will eventually be burned.

And is there a bigger scam than "auction letters"? An authenticator either believes an item is good, or he doesn't. What the hell can anything less than a "full letter" (itself meaningless IMHO) possibly mean?

Stop embracing the bullshit.

Never could understand the buyers premium in the auction houses. Sellers preminm yes for the privalige of selling your item but the buyer gets hit with 3 fees. The cost of the item he won. Next a 19 or 20% buyers premium which is the biggest joke, then a shipping fee which is always inflated. So 3 fees and the seller just one fee. There are a few auction houses that don't charge buyers prem and it's great. It's just like Ebay buy the item and pay for shipping. Simple. Sure there is cost which they all say but if some companies can do without a buyers prem and have successful auctions then they all should try. Maybe do it one time and see how it goes. When it gets to 20% for the privilage of throwing my money away to buy an item I go elsewhere. What if you went to a store to buy an item, went to the cash register paid for the item, paid the tax, (since there is no shipping) and then they hit you with a 20% fee for shopping there on top of everything. Same deal.

I won a bat in an auction with a auction letter and found out to send it to PSA would cost me about 15.00 to ship it and the cost to authenticate which to me I thought they already did with the auction letter cause it was on PSA letter head so I figured that was going to be about 35-50.00 then for PSA to ship back which there shipping fees are ridiculious so guessing 20.00 it would have cost another 100.00 for all that. What the H#ll. What a scam for the auction houses to get out of paying authentication fees and pass it on to the buyer, another cost. Ebay sucks but it's cut and dry. You know what everything is going to be. keith janosky

I go back far enough to remember when there was no such thing as a buyers premium.
But the auction houses started to give some sellers lower and zero commission offers to get them to consign their merchandise so they started to make the buyer pay a premium.
Meanwhile the buyers premium does change the bidding so in the end the seller does not really benefit to the extent that he thinks he does.

fees
 

In any business that is a "for profit" business, there has to be profit or there will be no business. The key is to finding the company willing to take less fees, overall, and get the same or better realized prices. It's that easy. I would forget about if it is a buyers, sellers or exaggerated shipping fee. Just add them up, whatever they are, and you will have a premise to go one when selling or buying. Also, regardless if it is a buyers or sellers fee, it's coming out of the sellers items' proceeds. Buyers understand and figure it into the equation when bidding. I know I do.