Heritage Platinum Night
 

In addition to all the controversial signed balls ( www.haulsofshame.com ) there was some amazing numbers....

1. The 1949 Mantle Bonus check, $286k...wow

I got one of my White Whales, the Dimaggio Gamer, at what I believe was a fantastic hammer given the market of some other items. I think having it finish toward the later part of the auction, put me at an advantage...

Any winners? any surprises?

Came up short on the Mantle 1968 bat, does anyone know who won it?

Congratulations on the Dimaggio bat. Great pickup.

Thought it was a lot of fun Fri and Sat - open bar, great food, Eruzione was a great speaker and fun to meet.

As a side, the signed HOF Ruth postcard presented better in-person than online; the end flourish to the "e" was ripped out when tape was removed from the piece. difficult to see this online, online it looks like the "e" just stops short.

Not sure....sorry you missed on Mantle...

Couldnt believe that his bonus check went for 286k....i would have lost a bet on that one...

As a consignor I feel I won too.

I consigned the Jets superbowl ring. I had purchased that a year ago from Paragon auctions.

After acquiring a second, and better Jet superbowl ring, I had a feeling the first ring would do well in a NY City Platinum auction. The ring had some wear and frankly, Heritage did a much better job presenting better pictures than Paragon did.

I more than doubled my money. Makes up for times I bought and sold and lost money.

very nice...believe it or not, i thought the same would happen on Dimaggio, i think the timing (end of auction) favored my luck

Nice, well done.

Heritage gets ripped a lot on this board, but I consider them one of the better auction houses. They and some other auction companies realize superior selling prices due to their marketing or abilities to generate interest outside the hobby.

Unfortunately, as a business owner, Ethics and Business I see time and time again, get further apart. Ethics is at the core of our business and how we treat others and our employees. The "fine line" when you look at a Heritage or ANY auction house who is doing business ( Business = work to create revenue ) while the industry itself has holes (Industry = fakes, forging..etc), you have 2 things that will never mesh, until an ISO9001 type party exists to protect business owner and buyer.

100 percent correct. It gets tiresome seeing the same people rip Heritage..psa..jsa.. over and over and over again. I actually believe they want/strive to be the highest standard in an imperfect industry. What makes it more ridiculous, is many of the people criticizing these institutions are far from perfect themselves(glass houses).
No one likes backseat drivers...particularly those without a license.

Congrats on finding a new ring and getting a good price on your old one.

If they wanted to strive to the highest standard in the industry, they would take steps to prevent the glaring mistakes. they don't do that, which tells me they aren't serious in getting it right.

heritage insisted on tagging auction items that were up for live internet bidding with a jsa auction loa when jsa hadnt seen the items yet. that is not striving for anything. they only changed their minds when people complained and got banned from heritage. heritage's excuse at the time is that it would cost too much money to fix and that is how big auction houses do business and that the little guy wouldn't understand that. It cost too much to fix?? This is Heritage with hundreds of millions in sales.

jsa and psa still don't fix their mistakes, they don't hire enough authenticators, they don't spend enough time on autographs, they don't tell you who looks at the autograph. they don't show exemplars, they don't tell you exactly why the autograph failed. how is any of this striving for the highest standard? and where is my glass house?

autograph authentication can be done in a positive way with reforms and accountability, but I haven't seen it yet. I am not against autograph authentication, just the way it is being done now.

People don't generally get banned for questioning a Heritage policy or auction lot. They usually get banned for acting like idiots. I know Chris fairly well, and while he might be a bit stubborn (hi Chris), he is fair. If anyone gets banned it's not for politely calling their attention to something. And I am not going to debate it. I know Chris well enough to know.....

Agreed. Chris has bent over backward most of the time to resolve issues/answer questions, and I'm not one of Heritage's huger customers.

I'm sure there are a few who have been banned for things that didn't involve being an idiot. I only say that (not knowing details) because I know a few "non idiots" who have been banned by auction houses. It could just be a matter of poking them in the eye repeatedly until at some point they want to break your finger.

What I found interesting has already been pointed out on another website. (HOS)
The Jackie Robinson single signed baseball was the only autograph item in the Heritage auction that did not have two COA's. It only had a JSA COA.
And when someone submitted it to PSA Quick Opinion they came back as "likely not authentic." Did PSA see this ball before the auction went online? They saw every other item in the auction. If they saw the ball I would speculate that they turned it down.
I forget which auction house was selling a single signed Mathewson baseball recently. It had a JSA COA with it. But the auction house, in their description, did state that PSA examined the ball and did not think it was authentic. That differs from what might have happened at Heritage. Did PSA see this baseball before the auction went online? Just askin'.
I would not give an opinion on this ball myself unless I had it in hand and had time to examine it carefully.
(I am already banned by Heritage).

The difference between the good guys and the bad guys is that the good guys -try- to get it right.
They may come up short on a percentage of items, but they try on their lots. There are bad guys out there who do not try, or worse, puposely mislead. Heritage tries hard, good guys in my eyes.
It is odd in this business/hobby that sometimes there is a relatively benign disagreement, that turns into a feud - without end. Didnt you hear Ben Affleck the other night, get rid of the grudges!
Wish some of the good guys here and the good guys at Heritage could just talk things through, perhaps bans be lifted, and all could move forward positively - and that angst, if any, be directed by all parties against the few really bad apples, who are -currently- (not in the past) -but currently- causing financial and other harm to others through fraudulent action.
Best
J

Guys at Heritage, if you are reading this, as an occasional consigner, nothing irks me more than your banning of collectors.

Do you ever wonder, that when banishments are discussed on this site and others, that potential consigners wiill be discouraged from putting their items into your auctions?

Why in the world would a consigner wish to limit the bidding universe, just because someone said or did something you felt put your auction house in a bad light? Once they are banned, they continue to post negative comments anyway.

And for the record, I'm glad you banish non payers, but that's not what I'm talking about in this post.

I don't understand what banning anyone accomplishes, but I'm not privy to details - if the banned also caused problems after purchasing that resulted in issues for consignors, and it looked like they would continue to do so, then it makes sense. But bitching and griping and complaining is not a good reason.

Regarding the Robinson item, perhaps PSA is just at judging something to be bad, as they are the other way around. In other words, it makes no difference whether or not they liked the item.

Travis, how do you suggest they fix mistakes?? It is an opinion.. The buyer is ultimately responsible for purchasing the item. I do think psa and jsa get it right more than most anyone else out there who actually give an opinion. It is not an exact science .. It is an opinion. They are under no obligation to show anyone their methods. Do you issue coas?

My comment about the Robinson ball was meant to question whether or not Heritage was acting in an open manner. Every autograph item they sold had two certs. except this ball. And then when PSA was allegedly asked about the ball they deemed it probably not authentic. One auction house was totally open about this when it happened to them. If it did happen to Heritage, why were they not open about it? They try to create the impression that two TPA's examine their items, which is apparently what does happen. But when one TPA might have deemed it to be not authentic, they still went with the item.
And what if their buyer sends the ball to PSA and it is deemed not authentic. What would have happened then?

He explained in his post how they fix their mistakes...revealing methods was only one of a longer list of ways they could do so...and I don't think "showing exemplars" is really revealing their methods as much as proving that they actually have exemplars of some very obscure autographs that they claim to authenticate.

I think for potential bidders, the missing PSA approval sticks out like a sore thumb. Maybe this is part of why they use 'pre-approvals' - a 'pre-approval' means it looks okay but hasn't been checked thoroughly, just as 'not pre-approving' means it might be okay but they need to check further.

Just playing 'devils advocate', which is unusual for me. As I said, it sticks out like a sore thumb, so it isn't doing them any good to not mention it.

Christian,

Thanks for your response but I think Travis can speak for himself???.. or at least he has in the past. Showing exemplars and methods is NOT fixing mistakes at all IMO. They really do not have to prove anything. If you do not think the item is real, don't buy it.

Ben

All of the items in the current auction were Full LOA from PSA/DNA and Full LOA from James Spence, according to the individual listings. Except for the Jackie Robinson baseball.

Richard, I know there are guys like you and Jim who are authorities on autographs and have a great deal of confidence, but as a novice, I have yet to see a single-signed ball that I would feel comfortable buying. Once they start looking great, the fact that they look 'great' even becomes worrying.