While I have only had first-hand experiences with Memory Lane & Heritage in the last decade, I have to admit I'd be a somewhat of a novice but here are some responses
Building A Base: Likely have to eat some costs here. Fees & BP would have to come down for the first auction cycle. Make the interface for on-line bidding as simple and user-friendly as possible. Believe it or not, the registration, rules, format are the reason's I have steered away from the bigger auctions. I was using eBay quite a bit when I left the hobby. When I started collecting again, I was astonished how it had changed. Lots of folks north of 50 are looking for EASY ways to participate.
Altered Cards: No problem with them at all. I would offer them and simply state the alterations and to bid accordingly.
Accidentally sell an altered card: I'm guessing this means you sell a '55 Clemente, for example, and later it is discovered that it was holdered by third party authentication service, despite having been trimmed or re-colored, etc.
Eating the cost would be impossible. I would state up-front that any card that is found to be altered must be addressed with the TPG. "Blah Blah Blah Auctions" will assist up to $1000.00 and refund any buyer premiums in the event that a TPG card is proven to be altered and not stated in the auction.
Frankly, the best way to start an auction house today, I believe, would be to only offer RAW cards. Have some of the known experts here or otherwise certify the cards as authentic. I am easily qualified to spot a doctored card--like scary good--when I can actually handle it. There are others even superior to me right here on these message boards. I would trust a guy who has collected a certain type of stock that was delivered in a consistent method for 30-40 years that has seen and handled the size, cuts, surfaces, paper, substrates etc. If I had a T206, for example, that I wasn't sure of, the first place I would look for authenticity would be here--NOT PSA. That's a fact.
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