The Big Question for Rob Lifson

[Archive]

Posted By: JimCrandell

Rob,

You said in your open letter that some of the most sophisticated work on cards has been executed by employees of auction houses that deal in cards.

Doug Allen replied that the only auction house that I know of that has employees that handle significant volumes of raw cards for grading is Mastro Auctions and I can tell you that we do not do "sophisticated work" on cards

Given that you were a senior person at Mastronet and you know the parties involved are you or are you not stating that employees of Mastronet are doing sophiticated work on cards?

Jim Crandell

[Archive]

Posted By: MikeU

Rob,

When working at MastroNet, did yourself or anyone at MastroNet or anyone at PSA auction a PSA 8 T206 Wagner in 2000 that was knowingly hand cut or trimmed?

We are worried about Doug taking a spoon to surface wrinkles. What about the biggest question in our entire hobby. Let the truth be known.

[Archive]

Posted By: barrysloate

For the record, I spoke to Rob yesterday and he is on vacation without a computer. I don't want to speak for him, but he hasn't had a chance to see any of these threads yet.

[Archive]

Posted By: Peter_Spaeth

the Wagner was trimmed, it was done long before 2000, so why confront Rob Lifson about this?

[Archive]

Posted By: MikeU

"the Wagner was trimmed, it was done long before 2000, so why confront Rob Lifson about this?"

I believe he was in charge of the sale at the time. At least he certainly was quoted in the press releases regarding the realized price. If he did not pull a card from auction that he knew was altered, I would like to know. He would obviously not be the person who trimmed the card or knowingly slabbed the card, but did he knowingly sell the card? Or did he intentially not investigate the rumours surrounding the card in fear of the truth? I am personally very interested. The question should pull Bill Mastro and Doug Allen into the mix also, which relates back to Jim's original question.

IMHO: The Wagner should never be allowed to go to public auction until the truth is disclosed.

[Archive]

Posted By: Peter_Spaeth

What was Rob supposed to do to "investigate" these rumors? Pick up the telephone and call X, who was going to admit to Rob that he had trimmed it or witnessed it?

[Archive]

Posted By: MikeU

Peter,

I just want Rob to tell the truth in the matter, since the truth seems to be the soup de jour. His answer could be the genesis or watershed moment of hobby reform that is truly needed. This is no way would mean that I would hold Rob or REA or Mastro or Bill or Doug fully responsible for the situation. Althought they should clear the air with the truth and take whatever consequences are deserved. The much more devious truth I believe lies with Dave Hall and/or Danny Fisher, if not others.

[Archive]

Posted By: cmoking

Thank you FYS. You have successfully ruined this thread with no chance of getting any useful replies to Jim's original questions.

[Archive]

Posted By: MikeU

Cmoking,

Rob did reply. He did so with a new thread. Sorry to not have dissapointed you.

[Archive]

Posted By: cmoking

Maybe I missed it, but show me where in Rob's post where he answered this question that was in this thread: "Given that you were a senior person at Mastronet and you know the parties involved are you or are you not stating that employees of Mastronet are doing sophiticated work on cards?" I don't see it.

[Archive]

Posted By: MikeU

"Maybe I missed it, but show me where in Rob's post where he answered this question that was in this thread: "Given that you were a senior person at Mastronet and you know the parties involved are you or are you not stating that employees of Mastronet are doing sophiticated work on cards?" I don't see it."

His answer to that specific question would be the following:

"I cannot articulate the formal policies of any auction company other than Robert Edward Auctions. It is our policy, both for what we consider to be good form as well as for very sound legal reasons, to not publicly comment on the specific practices of any specific company other than Robert Edward Auctions, or even to comment on specific items for sale, auction, or items sold in the past by other companies. We have made it a longstanding practice to cite what we think are issues in the industry that we think deserve attention, and we have given much time, energy, and thought to REA’s policies regarding addressing these issues. I will review in this post REA’s policies regarding 1) the altering of cards, 2) the resubmission of graded cards, and 3) the disclosure of lots owned by any employee of REA (or family member of any employee)."

[Archive]

Posted By: Dylan

Since this post seems to be revolving around the PSA 8 Wagner I would like to pose a question. If YOU owned the PSA 8 Wagner what would you do? Would you leave it as is, bust it out and regrade it with SGC? You'd probably leave it the way it is to maximize profit if you were to ever sell it. A lot to lose, little to gain for the owner. In a perfect world however...

[Archive]

Posted By: Peter_Spaeth

Knowing what you know, would you accept the PSA 8 Wagner for auction?

[Archive]

Posted By: Bobby

I have heard the owner of the PSA 8 Wagner has turned down private offers of over 2 Mil

[Archive]

Posted By: Harry Wallace (HW)

Peter, he already did auction off the PSA 8 Wagner. REA auctioned it off in 2000 when it sold for over a million.