Posted By:
ToddDear Mike,
My unfortunately cryptic comment was in no way, shape or form intended to be slap against you or your honesty and I am deeply sorry if you or others understood it to be such. You should be congratulated for getting a nice price on your auction and I, for one, am happy for you.
This thread was started to question why the Bescher card would bring such a large auction price. I think some folks honestly wondered if they had missed some aspect of why that card may have been more valuable than they would have thought and wanted the board's learned opinion on it. I defied my traditional status of lurker to initially weigh in and mildly defend my friend's rather large bid on that card which some deemed lacking in intelligence.
Another member then posted the Schreck (with a different seller) whose final price also seemingly defied traditional reasoning. I merely made mention of the fact that the buyer was (strangely) also the individual who had fallen just short on the Bescher card and that it was perhaps more than a coincidence. This was meant to playfully call into question the actions of that particular bidder but was not intended to impugn either of the sellers in the least.
My choice of words obviously could have been better (or at least better elaborated). My "larger forces" remark was meant to invoke an inside joke shared by a couple of us. We often speculate that certain eBayers who are throwing down serious coin on relatively "common" T206's (like the aforementioned "hecte-ionia") are actually shell ID's for nefarious individuals hell-bent on driving the prices into the stratosphere so that they can then rule the universe. "Come out from behind that two-way mirror, Olbermann -- We know it's you! Anyway, a bad joke with unfortunate and unintended consequences.
Again, all apologies on my sleep-deprived statements and actions. A slow holiday weekend at home is the Devil's playground.