Posted By:
vikes 066Lee,
You are correct as well. The auction houses have responsibility to correct mistakes when brought out and to check out items to ensure their customers get what they pay for.
Yes, the auction houses can no longer bury their heads in the proverbial sand now that all this controversy is swirling around about manufactured memorabilia.
The underlying issue still goes back to the overall conflict of interest though with the auction houses. If Bushing is the "only" perceived expert and he has a hidden financial or personal stake in an item and then he authenticates it and Mastro sells it and collects commissions on it, how can you believe it is real? It always comes back to the money no matter how hard they try to get the arguement away from that. The waters are very murky. As long as someone is willing to pay, I am sure the auction house is willing to cash the check and deal with the fall out later.
This check box crap on the back of LOA/COA is just that crap. If you are a company exec and you want to sell company stock, it has to be reported to the stock market. Until the auction houses make authenticators that sell report upfront that the person selling the item is the one that authenticated it this will go on until the end of time. Like I said before it always goes back to the money. If the auction house does list a potential conflict of interest up front, they may be afraid to keep high rollers away from an item thus depressing the value of the item, the sale and the all important both sides commission.
It always comes back to the money.....