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Posted By: <b>David Smith</b><p>I just read that an Academy Award statue was pulled from the Mastro auction because it is fake. The alleged 1944 statue was made of different metals and parts and weighed a pound more than an original.<br /><br />With the allegations of shill bidding during the last auction and now this, are the people at Mastro getting tooo greedy??<br /><br />Just a question. What do you all think??

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Posted By: <b>leon</b><p>The shill bidding was an allegation. I could call you a thief and that would be the same thing. An allegation. With this statue it sounds like they made an honest mistake and pulled it. Exactly what I would expect one of the best auction houses in America to do, imho......best regards

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Posted By: <b>David Smith</b><p>I agree, Leon, that being called a thief and actually being one are two different things. But bad news, or at least bad PR, is starting to accumulate as far as Mastro Auctions goes. Too much and bidders might start to not bid as high or as much, if at all. <br /><br />I am just wondering if they are branching out too far, too fast? Mastro and Steinbeck (spelling?) KNEW their baseball cards and memorabilia and the bidders knew that. Is Mastro branching out to other areas too fast and without enough experts to cover those areas??

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Posted By: <b>leon</b><p>I have heard someone talk about the "branching out" theory too. It's their business model and only time will tell. I am so focused on cards that I don't see the forest of great bats they have right now <img src="/images/happy.gif" height=14 width=14>.....

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Posted By: <b>Cobby33</b><p>The authenticity of an item offered by another big auction house was recently in question (by the athlete himself). Again- another "allegation," but the auction house refused to pull the item and, I suppose, opened itself up to big liability to the buyer and the athlete (assuming it was fake).

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Posted By: <b>anthony</b><p>i remember reading about someone having their award stolen at a party once and it said that it is almost impossible to sell because of the rules set by the academy. my understanding was that "only" the owner or "academy" could sell their award. and if one is up for sale, the academy will always consider buying back. i think that they were contacted by mastro to verify the authenticity of the award. in this case i dont think mastro did anything wrong.<br /><br />and fyi, only the government can own a moonrock, so if there is ever one of ebay and nasa isn't the seller, if fake

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Posted By: <b>Jay</b><p>I think Mastro did exactly the right thing. They found out that the statue was bad and they pulled it. My question is where did the consignor get the statue from. Why don't these stories ever come out as a follow up to a situation like this? Somebody forged an Oscar and tried to defraud someone by selling it as genuine. Who gets prosecuted here? I would hope that the whole story comes out.

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Posted By: <b>barrysloate</b><p>This kind of intrigue happens more often in the antique business than one would imagine. With collectibles of all kinds becoming so valuable, it will continue to happen and probably more frequently.

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Posted By: <b>Bobby</b><p>With an item such as this you would think it would of been authenticated before they even listed the item for sale. If it was as simple as just contacting the academy.

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Posted By: <b>barrysloate</b><p>Mastro Auctions is a state of the art business and you know the last thing they wanted is the bad publicity that this generated. It is just one of these regrettable situations that can happen to anybody and they did what was right. It's also fair to say that while they have handled about a million baseball cards, they probably don't have as much expertise handling Oscars. You always learn from these experiences and in the future they unquestionably will be ever more rigorous in making sure that everything they auction is what it is supposed to be.

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Posted By: <b>davidcycleback</b><p>The Oscars are tough as nails to buy, as the Academy contractually forbids winners from selling them. I don't beleive even Robert DeNiro could sell or auction one of his oscars. I know the Academy has had Oscars pulled from other auctions.

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Posted By: <b>Dan Koteles</b><p>if they were crooked ,it would still be up for bid !