Problems with two championship rings in upcoming Heritage Auction

[Chris Ivy]

Originally Posted by sports-rings

I see that one of the most controversial people in our hobby, Peter Nash published did a story at his website today on this Heritage Auction.

He points out some issues with a few of the high-end lots and he must have seen this post because he mentions the two rings in his story.

If any of the folks at Heritage see this post, or reads Peter's new blog article, would you please rethink your strategy on keeping questionable items in your auctions when evidence suggests that the item should be pulled or when the description needs to be modified?

That's all I'm asking.

Michael,
As you are aware, we have had open communication about these lots and I thanked you for bringing this information to my attention. Per our email exchange of July 18 (below), I feel that I addressed the concerns that you relayed to me:


Michael,
The catalog was at print prior to you contacting me about the Steelers rings.

As I have told you from the beginning, I will let you know when, or if, we decide to make an edit to the listings. However, it is important that we cover all bases prior to making an edit because we have to do right by both our consignor and our bidders, so there is no need to make a hasty decision prior to all the facts being in. As I told you, I have reached out to the consignor and the consignor is contacting Edwards to get to the bottom of the matter. I hope to have this done early next week.

Your assertion that you need to warn the collecting community before “someone buys a ring that they may later regret” is unfounded for several reasons. When an edit is made to the items, each bidder will be automatically notified of the update and if they wish to alter their bids, then they will have that opportunity. As I have told you, we have no interest in selling ANY item that is not as advertised because we stand behind every item that we sell. If the rings are sold and are not as advertised, we would provide a full refund and be out of the money. Given all of this information, it appears to me that you are giving me an arbitrary ultimatum because you are simply impatient. If that is the case, then posting speculation on a message board could materially affect the pieces and the outcome for our consignor, which I take seriously.

Again, I appreciate you coming to me with your thoughts and the additional images on the rings. The listings will be updated, removed, or left as is, once we get to the bottom of our additional research with the consignor. The auction does not conclude for 13 more days and as you know, most of the bidding occurs in the final 48 hours.

Regards,
Chris


Given the above email exchange, I feel that your post which I have quoted above is intellectually dishonest. If I do not do what I said that I was going to do, then you have every right to publically call me out, but I made it clear that we were gathering all of the facts and that we did not wish to make multiple updates to the lot as that would only serve to further confuse bidders. We were working to gather all of the facts that we could before making the decision to update or remove the lots, as I would trust that any consignor would want.

It has taken much longer than I would have preferred, but the consignor tells me that Don Edwards will be available to discuss details on Monday. At that time, we will make a final decision on the update or the removal of the Steelers rings.

This will serve as my only post on the matter so if anyone has any questions, then please feel free to contact me directly.

Regards,
Chris