SUBJECT: BEWARE Steve Verkman, Keith Vari, Leland’s, Clean Sweep & Paragon auctions

[Exhibitman]

My personal view, strictly as a hobbyist, is that 40% of the net after authentication fees is a terrible deal and borderline exploitative in a situation like the consignor describes (assuming the recitation is accurate as to how it went down). I also find the "it's a lot work" excuse to be unconvincing; we all work hard. Probably the best thing to do is for the AHs to return the items and tear up the contract, and for the OP to return the advance (or to agree on what is to be kept to repay the advance). Legalities aside, the consignor is very unhappy and the situation is just distasteful enough to make it a potential PR nightmare. In this extremely competitive hobby, it is probably a business mistake to hide behind the contract and get trashed as a result. Happy customers may tell a friend or two; unhappy customers are sure to tell ten. I wonder how many readers here made the decision not to go with Lelands or Clean Sweep as a result of what they have read.

Now, as a lawyer, if I was consulted by a CA resident who appears to be a senior and in health-related distress, my go-to would be the financial elder abuse laws. In my state, one has to be very, very careful in dealing with seniors because the legal consequences of playing fast and loose with their assets are punishing. It is a hellscape of heavy civil and potential criminal penalties; one of my clients went to jail over a transaction that might not have been treated as a crime if his counterparty had been a 45 year old man instead of an old woman. If we take the OP at face value, it appears that some items that the consignor did not think were part of the deal were taken, and that the basis for the high fees (lots of work) may not ring true if there was substantial cherry-picking. One of the things that raises my concern if I was representing the auctioneers is the lack of detail in the contract. That, plus the two-on-one, speedy dealmaking in the consignor's home, are factors that can go into a determination of potential elder financial abuse. There is just enough doodie stink on the potpourri to be concerning.

[sflayank]

I'm flabbergasted that there are people on here who think 40% is reasonable
I dont care if there's 1000 items to be sold
In this market the auction house could easily auction it off in 3 auctions if necessary...no extra work
That excuse is total bs..THATS THEIR JOB...I know auction houses that would line up to take that consignment and give the consignor 100 %...not only that but if its an easy 100k
consignment AH would give consignor at least $30k
up front

[jayshum]

Without knowing more details about the actual contents of the collection (aside from the few items mentioned by the OP) and how well it was or wasn't organized, it seems pretty hard to judge what a reasonable split of the auction proceeds would be.

I've spent the last few months going through a collection that a friend of mine had which filled 2/3 of a 20 foot UHaul and had almost no organization to it at all. Knowing how much time and effort I put in just to figure out what I had, to say that an auction house could easily take care of a collection that maybe filled 2 trucks of unknown size seems a little unrealistic. Sure, that's their job, but just like any job, the more work involved, the higher the cost.

[rand1com]

Originally Posted by jayshum

Without knowing more details about the actual contents of the collection (aside from the few items mentioned by the OP) and how well it was or wasn't organized, it seems pretty hard to judge what a reasonable split of the auction proceeds would be.

I've spent the last few months going through a collection that a friend of mine had which filled 2/3 of a 20 foot UHaul and had almost no organization to it at all. Knowing how much time and effort I put in just to figure out what I had, to say that an auction house could easily take care of a collection that maybe filled 2 trucks of unknown size seems a little unrealistic. Sure, that's their job, but just like any job, the more work involved, the higher the cost.

+1

[Gorditadogg]

Originally Posted by jayshum

Without knowing more details about the actual contents of the collection (aside from the few items mentioned by the OP) and how well it was or wasn't organized, it seems pretty hard to judge what a reasonable split of the auction proceeds would be.



I've spent the last few months going through a collection that a friend of mine had which filled 2/3 of a 20 foot UHaul and had almost no organization to it at all. Knowing how much time and effort I put in just to figure out what I had, to say that an auction house could easily take care of a collection that maybe filled 2 trucks of unknown size seems a little unrealistic. Sure, that's their job, but just like any job, the more work involved, the higher the cost.

OK. So if your friend's collection is worth well into six figures, say $300,000, would you say $120,000 is a fair price for the work you did? I'm just asking.

And obviously, none of us really know all the facts here, we are all just making up theories as we go along.

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[jayshum]

Originally Posted by Gorditadogg

OK. So if your friend's collection is worth well into six figures, say $300,000, would you say $120,000 is a fair price for the work you did? I'm just asking.

And obviously, none of us really know all the facts here, we are all just making up theories as we go along.

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It's not an exact comparison because my friend inherited his collection and knows nothing about it or has ever been interested in sports cards and memorabilia. Without some kind of help from someone who knew about the hobby, he would have probably had a tough time finding someone to buy it (or an auction house to be willing to go through it all) at anywhere close to the value it turned out to be worth since the vast majority of items were low value. However, mixed in amongst everthing was a lot of value, so yes, I think the work I did for him was worth at least 40% to him. Below is a picture of what I was dealing with which only shows about 2/3 of what he had. This is a 10x15 storage unit it's in, and the rest was in another office he was renting.

For the OP, without knowing more details about how the collection was organized, the desirability of the items and their general value, it's hard to say what would be a fair cut for an auction house. Regardless of the value of an item, there's still some time required to list it in an auction. If something is going to sell for $5000, it doesn't take 1000x longer to list it than an item that will sell for $5. Based on a post by someone who knew the OP, it sounds like there were some better items but a large amount of items that would take a lot of time and effort to go through and organize before listing even though they were not high value, and if they're only going to sell for a small amount, the auction house needs to make more on the better items to make it worth their time and effort. I still don't think enough is known about the overall situation to be able to judge how fair it is to the OP.

[Gorditadogg]

Originally Posted by jayshum

It's not an exact comparison because my friend inherited his collection and knows nothing about it or has ever been interested in sports cards and memorabilia. Below is a picture of what I was dealing with which only shows about 2/3 of what he had.

That looks a lot like my collection. Are you going to be in Chicago anytime soon?

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[jayshum]

Originally Posted by Gorditadogg

That looks a lot like my collection. Are you going to be in Chicago anytime soon?

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For the right price, maybe I could be.

[parkplace33]

Originally Posted by sflayank

I'm flabbergasted that there are people on here who think 40% is reasonable
I dont care if there's 1000 items to be sold
In this market the auction house could easily auction it off in 3 auctions if necessary...no extra work
That excuse is total bs..THATS THEIR JOB...I know auction houses that would line up to take that consignment and give the consignor 100 %...not only that but if its an easy 100k
consignment AH would give consignor at least $30k
up front

Im not. This board loves AHs.

[jingram058]

Originally Posted by parkplace33

Im not. This board loves AHs.

It's also a country club comprised of very wealthy arm chair "sea lawyers" who know everything about everything. If you're not in the club, or go counter to the club's unwritten rules of buying and selling very expensive (pocket change to them) graded cards they just ignore you.

[Snapolit1]

I am not offering an opinion on the OP's situation. If anything the facts are so freakin' opaque, and incomplete, and conflicting as to what the hell even happened here, any opinion on this board appears to me to more of a guess.

I will say that it's amazing to me how many people on the board denigrate AHs at every opportunity and seem to have little clue as to how much work they (or at least the good ones) actually do. Canvassing for items, collecting, sorting, organizing, handling sending off to grading, investigating and researching, photographing, preparing a catalog, doing mailing, etc. Some of you guys seem to believe that these guys running AHs are sitting on their asses all day long smoking cigars just waiting for money to pour in. It's absurd. To the extent I have any visibility into how they do business, it seems to be a shit ton of of work to build out an auction, deal with consignors, deal with bidders, answer phone calls the night of the auction, deal with pissed off consignors and bidders after the auction, ship hundreds of boxes out, track down missing boxes, etc.

Occasionally I sell a few items a month on eBay and it's much more of a pain in the ass than I really need.

[G1911]

Auction houses are legitimate businesses that perform tasks and functions, and don't just sit there waiting for money to roll in.

Cherry-picking the collection (if true) and taking 40% of the cut is a really, really bad deal for the consignor.

No reasonable person should have signed this contract when it was presented to them, for, if nothing else, that it is more like someone's notes than an actual contract and is wildly incomplete. A consignor need not sign anything put in front of them and should not, the auction house obviously is looking out for their own financial interests, and the consignor should know to do the same for themselves and do their due diligence.

This 'contract' is so poorly phrased and done that it should be pretty easy to get out of.

An inventory list would complete the evidentiary part from the consignors end.

It would be interesting to hear how the OP's post was "not accurate", as the production of the contract seems to validate most of them.

We can further deduce its probably not a fair deal to the consignor because talk of it had to be banned to the watercooler to reduce eyes on it, which does not happen to threads that reflect well on Lelands, only those that reflect poorly (previous example: https://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=276894)

[Leon]

Originally Posted by G1911

Auction houses are legitimate businesses that perform tasks and functions, and don't just sit there waiting for money to roll in.

Cherry-picking the collection (if true) and taking 40% of the cut is a really, really bad deal for the consignor.

No reasonable person should have signed this contract when it was presented to them, for, if nothing else, that it is more like someone's notes than an actual contract and is wildly incomplete. A consignor need not sign anything put in front of them and should not, the auction house obviously is looking out for their own financial interests, and the consignor should know to do the same for themselves and do their due diligence.

This 'contract' is so poorly phrased and done that it should be pretty easy to get out of.

An inventory list would complete the evidentiary part from the consignors end.

It would be interesting to hear how the OP's post was "not accurate", as the production of the contract seems to validate most of them.

We can further deduce its probably not a fair deal to the consignor because talk of it had to be banned to the watercooler to reduce eyes on it, which does not happen to threads that reflect well on Lelands, only those that reflect poorly (previous example: https://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=276894)

You are just an ignorant asshole sometimes that has a part of a story and then you make crap up. That thread you listed was posted 8 days after my wife of 25 yrs died tragically. I wasn't dealing with Josh Evans at the time and did what I did. Like I say, every situation is different. That said, just in case you don't like it here...

[Peter_Spaeth]

Did the OP already accept a cash advance?

[Casey2296]

Originally Posted by jingram058

It's also a country club comprised of very wealthy arm chair "sea lawyers" who know everything about everything. If you're not in the club, or go counter to the club's unwritten rules of buying and selling very expensive (pocket change to them) graded cards they just ignore you.

-
As a working class collector that sacrifices a lot to stay in the game (by choice), that has not been my experience. Some of the nicest most helpful members have been from the high net worth group you deride.

Are there jerks here, indeed, but far fewer than in the general population.

[Gorditadogg]

Originally Posted by jingram058

It's also a country club comprised of very wealthy arm chair "sea lawyers" who know everything about everything. If you're not in the club, or go counter to the club's unwritten rules of buying and selling very expensive (pocket change to them) graded cards they just ignore you.

No one can ignore you, James.

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[Republicaninmass]

Originally Posted by parkplace33

Im not. This board loves AHs.

Plenty of them on the board


Myself included.


A-- H---

Doesn't stand for auction house!

[rand1com]

Originally Posted by sflayank

I'm flabbergasted that there are people on here who think 40% is reasonable
I dont care if there's 1000 items to be sold
In this market the auction house could easily auction it off in 3 auctions if necessary...no extra work
That excuse is total bs..THATS THEIR JOB...I know auction houses that would line up to take that consignment and give the consignor 100 %...not only that but if its an easy 100k
consignment AH would give consignor at least $30k
up front

I just bought a graded card collection of 8 two row shoe boxes that fit in the back seat of my car on 1 side that had 1200 graded cards in it. Can you honestly envision two trucks full being a measly 1000 items. Likely tens of thousands of uncatalogued items.

So the auction house will give the consignor 100% of the hammer, part of the buyer premium, and a $30K advance when their final take would be less than $20K. What world are you living in?