My hunch is they used house accounts to bid up lots to hidden reserves agreed to with consignors. Im sure that was common practice for Mastro and its employees was to give false promises or kickbacks to land high end consignments back in the day. Consignors I imagine, did not read the fine print or terms and conditions with the auction and took them for their word since they sell millions each year.
Back when Mastro was was the premire auction company, reserves were rarely seen or advertised. It was not "industry standards" As few auction companies just started out lots at higher amounts. Mastro liked to start out lots lower letting the "market set the price". I have won probally more than 100 lots between both Mastro and Legendary.
I can only imagine who the under bidder was on all my lots won.
I would think that former Mastro/Legendary consignors would be upset if they were told one thing and then it played out differently. Another form of fraud thats never discussed. I imagine that contracts disapeared too along with the bidding history is my guess.
I will end this with a silver lining that no matter what I won, that chances are very good that my investment has risen in value. Look at how well the card market as a whole has done over the last 15 years. Im sure Ive been bumped or pushed higher by auctions houses, and it stinks to think about it... But, I was still willing to Bid the winning amount and when the card(s) came in, I was glad I did.
Letter will be written soon even though my story has been told.
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