Posted By:
CySomeone brought up the possibility that all Dr. Koos wants to do is get a feel for the market value of the card. But, from all of the discussion, this card is altered or misrepresented in one way or another. What if the good doctor has an extremely high reserve price that no one will meet, but then he will contact one, or more, of the eager bidders, and sell the card outright to one of them? By doing this, the good doctor will have sold an altered card for a substantial price and there is no ebay trail to follow him. Since this is a private auction, only he and the buyer would know about these shenanigans (I had to get the word shenanigans into one of my posts.) and Dr. Koos gets a substantial payment for an allegedly fraudulent card.
Pretty slick, Dr.
My two cents (nowhere near enough to bid on the Mickey Mantle gem!)
Cy