[MikeU]

Originally Posted by bubblebathgirl

Definitely. And this is really the only current way that things are kept from flying apart at the seems as they currently are.

Only issue is, again for high profile cards, what is an "overbid"?

People get their concept of fair prices from previous sales. But if all of the previous sales came from the same suspicious forum, well then you have a problem. This is precisely why many high profile cards never make it to ebay, because sellers know they would take a dive ... or when they do make it to ebay, they consign the card so that they can bid on it. Now at least on ebay some detective work can be done when this happens.

You're gonna see some people lash out at me personally here, and that's because I'm challenging something that is probably near and dear to their hearts ... something they've based a lot of their collection on and now is being questioned ... and they simply can't handle it. It's just what happens ... and is fine. Thankfully this board has a nice ignore function

It's always clear to me when someone has a weak argument because they result to personal attacks, name calling and general immature behavior. This is the kind of stuff that got a lot of the same bad seeds either kicked off CU or reprimanded there. I'm glad PSA instituted their forum rules and have found posting their a lot more enjoyable since.

But yeah, as for overbidding, thankfully there are a lot of resources to use to come up with a comfortable price ... and it's easy enough to filter out the obvious balloons. A good example is the 1978 Topps #707 Rookie Shortstops PSA 10 card:



You can clearly see how this card took a dive after coming back to reality on ebay after a stint at 2 of the AHs. Now it's reasonable for the card to have a certain increase in value as unopened material has dried up a lot, but this kind of pattern of buy high at AHs and sell low on ebay isn't uncommon for premium cards ... and there's certainly a reason for this.

The unfortunate thing is some online publications will take this latest hammer price and use that as an indicator of the new "value" of the card, when in this case, it's most likely just another balloon waiting to pop.

Instead of the blanket term auction houses, research across multiple cards and see if there is some statistical significance with a certain auction house(s) that appears shill friendly. At the same time, which auction house(s) appear to be non-shill friendly. If a shill friendly auction house surfaces, the obvious statement will be that we have the best reputation and marketing department in the land and thus have the most big shark accounts in the industry and these sharks don't like to buy on eBay. This may have some validity actually. So the data can be misleading and dangerous.

How about make a software program that cross references registered bidders i.e. phone numbers, addresses and if they are match they are black balled and published in perpetuity as shills. Doesn't help friends and family. Could do a reference for last names or maiden names of spouse, which all gets a little dicey, but could be refined. Then the auction house can claim they are the best in the business at ousting and preventing shilling and truly wants to help the hobby with sharing the information.