Posted By:
barrysloateFred- I used to partner up with those groups, but after giving the matter some thought I decided I would no longer participate.
It's a tricky issue. In many cases if a 30 card E94 set is up for sale, it's reasonable that six different collectors might need only a handful of cards each, so splitting the set among them is a logical thing to do. Everyone can get a few cards, and all are happy.
But the one person who may not be happy is the consignor. Often I've heard consignors tell me their sets did rather poorly, even though they were given to a major auction house. And it's usually because those six guys agreed not to compete. So it's a bit of a gray area; in the end the consignor loses money, but I also understand the argument that most collectors can't afford the whole set, and this would be their only chance to walk away with a few nice cards.