Quote:
Originally Posted by BRoberts
Perhaps Scott Russell of The Collector Connection can post about the legalities of an auction house selling items it knows it doesn't have in its possession. Scott has said he graduated from auction school, and I bet that topic was covered. |
I am about as certain as I can be that ML would've consulted with counsel before making the decision they did. I don't remember ever discussing auctioning of things that have been stolen prior to completion of the auction. It's a pretty unique scenario.
A related concept that is covered and is legal is that there are a surprising number of auction companies (not necessarily sports) that auction items they don't have possession of. Whether they're allowing a consignor hold the item until they approve of the sale and in some cases even allowing them to ship it on to the final destination on behalf of the auction company. We are advised against the practice in school for a number of pretty obvious reasons. I've had consignors try and make these arrangements with me, we turn down the consignments. Amazingly though, it is not actually illegal (really isn't that in essence what an ebay auction is?)