Bricol Enterprises - Wonderful Story

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Posted By: Paul

About 18 months ago, I purchased a D304 Ty Cobb from Bricol Enterprises in an SCD auction. For those of you who don't know, Bricol is a regular advertiser in SCD. They mostly auction memorabilia, but occasionally have a few vintage cards.

The card arrived and it rested happily in my collection until I decided to trade it (and other cards) for some amazing Puerto Rican cards of Negro Leaguers. The collector I was trading with concluded it was counterfeit, throwing a bit of a monkey wrench into our deal. But fortunately he was very understanding and it all worked out fine.

Anyhow, I sent the card off to SGC for comfirmation and it came back counterfeit. I contacted Brian Collard, the owner of Bricol, to see if there was anything he could do. Remember, this was 18 months later. His response: please send the card back for a full refund with our apologies. I sent it back and received the refund.

To say I was pleasantly surprised is an understatement. I was stunned. I can think of a thousand legitimate reasons why a dealer would be justified in not taking a card back after 18 months, and with the reputation so many dealers have for less-than-admirable conduct, I really did not expect this at all. I have to give Bricol and Brian Collard an A+++ or one of those newfangled "Pristine 100"s for the way they handled this.

The one reaction that I hope no one has to this post is that Bricol deals in bad cards. I was fooled by the card for 18 months and Bricol obviously was as well. Anyone dealing in a large volume of merchandise can make a mistake, especially with a card not frequently encountered. What matters is how they respond to the problem. To me, the important thing is that, even after 18 months, Bricol stood by its merchandise and gave me a full refund.

Paul

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Posted By: quan

is there a scan of the d304 cobb? would like to see how real/fake the card looks.

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Posted By: Julie

..and didn't even THINK about it to notice its trimmed condition for six months, because it was only vg-ex (who would think of trimming a vg-ex card?--HAH!) When someone called it to my attention, I could see it immediately. I would never THINK of telling K.Y. after all that time! (I did mention it in passing when making another purchase fromn K.Y. recently, and was greeted by total silence--not even : "can you send us a scan".
Lucky you! I'll look up Bricol.

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Posted By: Todd

Paul, I am glad to hear you got your money back from Bricol Sports Auctions. In my opinion, Brian Collard is one of the biggest frauds in the hobby. In his one of his auctions a couple of years ago he had a 1954 Wilson Franks Ted Williams. I was high bidder on the card at around $360.00. The card had great eye appeal with the exception of a small 1/8th inch tear at the bottom of the card. The card would have been EX-MT+ or possibly NM without the tear. Needless to say it was a tremendous steal for that card in any condition. I also was high bidder on a "Vintage Joe Jackson store model bat" at least that is what the item discription said. Well, let's just say the bat was NOT vintage, but made within the last 2 years by Hillerich & Bradsby. Any moron could have seen that the bat was newly manufactured, but Collard passed it off as vintage.

What really pissed me off was when I paid for the the items the first business day after the auction, I paid extra to have the items shipped next day air. Well, the next day came, no package. I called, no answer, but left a message. Repeat of the same the next day. Well finally, on the third day I got of hold of the girl in Collard's office and told her of my problem. Nothing had been shipped. They had also conveniently lost the Ted Williams card. Not only was I never told this, but they could not even give me the courtesy to call me about never shipping the package. Collard insisted that the card had been lost or just misplaced and that he would call me if it was found. It's funny that the card never was found and just disappeared and to which he thinks I was stupid enough to think that the either he or the consignor was not happy with the selling price of the card and that is the reason it was suddenly lost.

Collard also sells PRO graded cards in his auctions. Any ethical auction house wouldn't touch a PRO graded card with the reputation that they carry in the hobby.

I will never bid and if I even try to discourage people from bidding or having anything to do with Brian Collard or Bricol Enterprises.

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Posted By: Paul

I have side by side scans of the fake and a real one (taken from a Mastro catalog I believe). They are attached to an email and I can forward them to you if you give me your email address. I'm not quite sure how to extract them from the email to post them here. Anyhow, the give away is in the border. It looks yellow from age, but if you blow up the scan you can see that the border (which should be white) is actually made up of tiny yellow dots. This is not the case with the real one, which has a true white border.

Also, the person I was trading with saw an overall difference in the look of the cards. I'm not quite sure what he saw, but you may see the same thing. And maybe I should get my eyes checked.

One more thing, when I got the card back I measured it and it was about 1/16" small in both directions compared to my other D304s. The Cobb had a General Baking back, and my others are Brunners, and I don't know whether cards having different backs should be the same size. I suspect they should.

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Posted By: TBob

When you buy a fake, a replica card from Bricol Enterprises' auction. I got the card and it took me 3 seconds to see it was a fake. I emailed them, returned the card and received a prompt refund.

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Posted By: Jeff S

Do I see a pattern?

I bought an E90-1 Walsh from Bricol that was obviously a fake. (Kinda glossy, actually.)

It's all well and good that they (sometimes?) handle returns well, but this is a pretty sad auction we're talking about. At least there are no stories about Mr. Collard's grandfather passing down some great cards from generation to generation...

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Posted By: TBob

You outbid me on the Walsh The Walsh and Speaker were being offered at the same time. Both were fakes. Glad you got your money back also.

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Posted By: petecld

Paul,

First off let me say I'm glad you got a refund. But before you write to the Pope for Brian Collard's sainthood keep it in perspective.

If you had said that after 18 months, you compared the card to the original description and noticed the description didn't mention some damage and you still got your money back then I would be impressed with Brian Collard. BUT. . .

What he did - selling a fake card as authentic - is called fraud. It's illegal. His giving you a refund is not some grand gesture - it's an act that will keep you from possibly sending him to jail for robbery, mail fraud, etc. or costing him some major monetary fines.

In a nutshell...IT'S THE LEAST HE COULD DO. Nothing more.

I am firmly entrenched in the "Stay Away From Brian Collard" camp.

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Posted By: runscott

If they sell 10 reprints at $500 each and 9 out of 10 customers complain, they can cheerfully and apologetically return all 9 customers' money and still make out like bandits off the one who couldn't tell a reprint from a fake. But the return % is much smaller.

Koos/Dupcheck was running the same scam with restored comics: restore them and sell as unrestored, cheerfully give refunds to the low percentage of customers who could tell they had been altered or who sent them to the grading company and got back the bad news.

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Posted By: quan

I'm assuming these are Ebay transactions...if so what is his id?