Legitimacy of Auction Houses

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Posted By: warshawlaw

I don't think we are taking the issue too cavalierly, I think we are all just a bit too shell-shocked to be surprised at any card price nowadays, so getting maxed out is not unexpected. Look, I know the boxing card market better than probably anyone in the world and I am even surprised at how fast bidding escalates. I just watched a card jump from $205 to $531 in the last ten seconds of the auction (bet you were sweating bullets, Pete ). Bid pricing moves with "modern" technology at the speed of light and information is available far more readily than ever before. With the thousands of people that all the major auctioneers have as catalog recipients and/or eyeballs on the web, we can only guess at how many thousands of views these auctions get. I just content myself being pleasantly surprised when I win one cheaper than my max.

In a way it is kind of like Vegas. The casinos could hire card sharps as dealers to cheat the customers, but they don't have to do that to make tons of money and they don't want to kill their credibility by getting caught doing something that stupid. It isn't worth the risk to a Mastro, which does $50 mil a year in auction sales, to cheat bidders and lose its reputation.