MEARS effort to help clean up the hobby. REA signs on.

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Posted By: davidcycleback

Concerning game used auctions, Lelands authenticates their own stuff and has a good reputation for reliability amongst game used collectors. Beyond that, MEARS is widely considered superior to some other game used authentication services that auction houses use. When an auction house uses mostly or only one of the 'diploma mill' LOA services, it will hurt their reputation in the long run, especially if an inordinate amount of items are juged to be fake. Being able to use MEARS' services and LOAs is an advantage to an auction house.

It's somewhat comparable to if a major auction house decided to save money by having all their Pre-War cards graded by Beckett instead of SGC. Even if you thought Beckett was a decent enough company, you'd really wish cards were in SGC holders not Beckett. A lot of Net54ers may switch their bidding to an other auction house that still uses SGC. Duly note that many serious game used collectors will say the gap between MEARS and some other GU authentication services is much wider than between SGC and Beckett. So the Beckett/SGC comparison was a conservative example.

I'm sure if an individual collector got a MEARS LOA, then later consigned it to Mastro or whomever later, that would be acceptable. I'm sure MEARS is not about to discourage individual collectors from getting LOAs then later selling the items.

Though I believe he does bats not jerseys, John Taube of PSA/DNA authenticates for the big auction houses and is highly respected as an expert. So an auction house can still hire the services of Taube/PSA for their bats. I've noticed Mastro, for one, already uses his LOAs a lot.

MEARS' disclosure of alteration concerns are legitimate. I know of a case where an auction house changed a game used item, and didn't disclose the change. Collectors noticed a problem, then the auction house disclosed the change. There was another case where MEARS said in their letter than an item appeared to be altered, the auction house got a different positive LOA and did not disclose MEARS opinion to the bidders. Again, eagle eyed collectors following the auction deduced that the item was altered. These two instances should illustrate why MEARS has decided to set disclosure rules.