[Exhibitman]

I retrieved one of my old Mastro consignment agreements today to see whether it said anything about sending out my stuff on spec. Not surprisingly, there isn't a word in there to that effect. In fact, the agreement has this gem:

"If any Buyer does not pay us for any Memorabilia within sixty (60) days after the end of an Auction, you have the option to withdraw the Memorabilia and have us return it to you, at your expense, or you may leave the Memorabilia with us for placement in another Auction."

So, not only did Mastro NOT inform consignors that it had the right to send their stuff out without payment, they affirmatively represented to the consignors that if the item was unpaid for 60 days, it could be reclaimed. By definition, if the item could be reclaimed from Mastro by the consignor after 60 days, Mastro had no right to send it to a bidder without payment first being received by Mastro. Therefore, any item that was not paid for should be in Mastro's possession. If it is not and the consignor is unpaid, it means one of three things:

1. Mastro was paid for it and then misappropriated the funds;

2. Mastro was not paid for it and knowingly sent out the item despite having expressly represented to its consignors that the items would still be there if the items were unpaid after 60 days; or

3. Mastro had the items and transferred them to Legendary when Legendary "bought" the assets, and Legendary has them. I bring up this possibility only because we all know of consignors to Mastro whose unsold items were summarily transferred to Legendary and auctioned off by Legendary.

I don't know what happened, but I have a very strong suspicion that Mastro operated much like a giant confidence scheme in which it allowed certain privileged clients to have items without payment, hence the need for the minimum 45-day float between auction close and payment to consignors so that those bidders could resell and pay off. All the risk of loss was shifted to the consignors instead of on Mastro.

No matter how you slice this turd, it still stinks.