Mears Auction

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Posted By: rob

I was looking through the auction on-line and noticed that they are selling a lot of Mears authenticated memorabilia. I see they say the consignor is an employee and such, but this seems dicey to me. Kind of like Beckett selling cards on ebay, no?

It has the look of impropriety whether it exists or not, and I would be quite hesitant to bid on something graded by the seller.

Am I missing something on this, has it been discussed before?

Rob

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Posted By: davidcycleback

If they disclose the consignor and the stuff is authentic, I don't have an issue.

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Posted By: rob

even if the consignor works for the company authenticating the goods?

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Posted By: Rawn Hill

I'm bidding and have no worries.

Rawn

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Posted By: brock

Troy told me that for their first auction their only selling their stuff but after that they will take consignments.

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Posted By: DJ

Knowing what we know (and what I know) about auction houses, there are only a few that I truly trust. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with this as I feel they are trying to build a reputation slowly, but I can see how some can take offense to an authenticating company selling goods that they authenticate themselves, making the hobby believe that they are "biased", and then shifting the way they operate. What if PSA/DNA started auctioning off signatures?

The funny thing is that the word "shill" gets tossed around often lately and this company hammers a point there is no shill bidding allowed. Their minimum bids are on the heavy side ($100 for a Paul Hornung signed 11x14?), is it safe to assume that the only auction companies that we accuse are the ones that start the bidding off at a fraction of what it should sell for?

I'm not saying they shill, but they have been mentioned here. Mastro Auctions whose minimum bid is usually 1/8th to 1/10th of what the final hammer price is and Hyee who starts everything off at .99 to begin with?

DJ

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Posted By: Fred C

Shilling can take place in any auction where a consignor provides material to the auction house. All the consignor has to do is have a buddy bid on items for them. There is that risk of having to buy your own material back but there's also a great chance that you can squeeze a lot more out of another bidder.

None of the auction houses are immune. I've had someone tell me that they've used this practice for an auction put on by a a major auction house. No, I'm not going to out who or who did this or which auction house was used. The fact is that it could happen to any auction house with or without their knowledge.

Is there a conflict of interest if an authenticating company begins auctioning/selling material that they have authenticated? Hell yes there is, but what's to stop them from using another company to do the selling for them?

I have to figure that Mastro (and the reputable auction houses, big and small) could hire a bunch of authenticators and use them but the smart auction houses will keep everything separated.

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Posted By: JimB

Are they MEARS approved? Didn't MEARS try to have some conditions for how auction houses ran their business before they would do authentication for them?
JimB

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Posted By: davidcycleback

Jim, one of the rules is they had to have access to the books. I assume they have that.

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Posted By: davidcycleback

My opinion is an auction house stands or falls on whether the items they auction are authentic and the quality of their other performance (shipping, financial, grading, etc). If they sell quality stuff and otherwise do well, they will gain good reputations in the hobby. If they sell fake or misdescribed items, they will get a bad reputation in the long run. Same applies to eBay sellers. Lelands authenticates their jerseys, autographs and memorabilia and they have good reputations. I can think of one or two auction houses that use independent authenticators and have much lesser reputations. In the extreme example, Coachs Corner has all of their lots okayed by outside examiners.

Lastly, for non-gameused/autographed memorabilia, it is the auction house that examines and judges the authenticity of the items offered. For a Babe Ruth clock, it is the seller (REA, Mastro, Heritage) that has judged the authenticity and grade of the item. So all of us regularly buy memorabilia that has been 'self-authenticated' by the auction house. How do we judge the auction houses in these sales? By the accuracy of their description and the quality of their service.

Now an auction house like REA does get outside LOAs for certain types of items (game used, autographs), but, as the other non-LOA items illustrate, we do not judge an auction house solely by the sanctity of the authenticator/client relationship. We mostly judge REA, Mastro, REA or an eBay seller by the overall accuracy of the descriptions and quality of the service. As already noted, Lelands self-authenticates their autographs and game used jerseys, and autograph and game used collectors in general say Lelands has a strong reputation in these areas. Whether deserved or undeserved, Mastro has gotten multiple more complaints from the game used community than Lelands-- and Mastro is the one that has independent LOAs on all their gu lots.