Posted By:
Ryan ChristoffThere are many dealers and auction houses I will never do business with. Those on my list are almost all there because of shady dealings I had with them. There are some people who I do not personally like, but are ethical in their business dealings, making it tolerable to do business with them, to a point. In a few cases, I will simply not deal with someone because they are too big of a DB for me to be associated with them in any way, but that is rare. I suspect there are those who feel the same way about me.
It seems like most collectors have a Faustian approach to collecting, from what I've seen. Whatever works, I guess. But for me, life is way too short to get involved with shady people just to advance my collecting pursuits a little. Even though I have passed on many items and let some things go for many times less than I would have paid, I've still been able to build a decent collection.
A few months ago there was an item I liked being auctioned by one of the auction houses I will not deal with. I mentioned the item to someone who was bidding on a bunch of items and told him how I'd pay $3,000 for this particular piece if it wasn't being sold by scumbags. I mentioned how someone was probably going to wind up with a bargain since I knew I would probably have paid more than anyone else. This guy wound up winning it for around $1,500 (after BP) and sold it to me for $3,000. It's one of my favorite items and I didn't even have to deal with a-holes to get it!
This is something to consider when consigning material. How many bidders won't be bidding on your material because of how shady the auction house is?
The bottom line is, there are way too many scumbags in this hobby.
On a totally unrelated note, I noticed that Dave Kohler and SCP Auctions got some press recently for bidding on and winning a Ruth uniform in a recent auction.
-Ryan