Mullaney w Young ghost, multiple overstrike reverse authenticated by PSA ends tonight

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Posted By: Robert {Bigb13}

It's a 52 Topps but I figured you guys might like it. Rob

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Posted By: Robert {Bigb13}

I think it's there now. Rob

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Posted By: Robert {Bigb13}

Do you guys like that one? Rob

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Posted By: Wesley

Very nice Ed Lopat card, Rob. Perhaps the Andy Warhol of 1952 Topps.

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Posted By: John

T.E.,

Any reason you decided to keep the user ID private for the auction I was bidding pretty high then noticed you dropped the reserve today went back to bid and noticed the user ID was private...needless to say I'm not a huge fan of this format for many reasons.....

John

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Posted By: Robert {Bigb13}

Yes I agree this is not good at all. I think the way ebay hides bidders id's is opening a huge door for shill bidding and I for one will not be bidding. I believe you should not hide anything that you should know who you are bidding against. Rob 

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Posted By: T E

I hate private auctions. I have never used one before. I always want bidders to know what they are dealing with.

I have a program call Blackthorne. When I first decided to list this card, I wanted to find out if there was a way I could pre-screen potential bidders. I thought that wa what "Private Auction" meant. I chose that setting in Blackthorne. I called ebay to check and they explaind that that was not what "private" meant. But when I listed it I didn't go back in and change the setting in Blackthorne. It is a hidden field that you have to open, and I just missed it.

Edited to say, actually, now that I have gone back and looked at Blackthorne, I see that Private is not a hidden field, it's up on the right, little tiny thing, but since I had never before used it I just didn't notice it when time came to do the listing

The next day, when I looked at the listing through my wife's ebay ID (same account), I saw that you could not see the other bidders info. I tried to change it, but wasn't allowed to. I called ebay up and they told me that once a bid had been placed, I was not allowed to change the Private Listing setting because I had, in a sense, entered into a contract with those who bid already for a Private Listing. The problem is I have spent a lot now on the listing, getting all the features, and I have a lot of interest. I am afraid that if I kill the listing and start again, I will lose more than I gain.

I lowered the reserve price, quite frankly John, to get past this stage of the auction. I want to make sure that bidders involved are serious now, nt just playing a game to figure out what the reserve is, which I suspect one bidder may or may not have been doing.

Do consider my feedback and history. While this will probably be the high mark for a sale, I have sold several items in the past at +10K. I earn about $3000 a week on ebay, it is my livelyhood, and would NEVER shill bid. I would no jeopardize my family's welfare for a couple of thousand dollars. It is not worth it, and it is wrong. I have been earning a living doing ebay since 2001 and take great pride in doing it the right way.

I will be happy to include any and all info on the auction I can while respecting the other bidders rights to privacy under this dopey rule. I am not sure how Private Auctions treat the winning bidder, but I will not reveal his or her identity, that will be up to the buyer. Please feel free to email me or even call me directly on the phone (message me for number)

Sincerely,
Tom McMorrow

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Posted By: John

Tom,

I respect an honest mistake and appreciate your feedback, thanks for replying.

Just a thought you could always end and re-list without hiding the bidders….but understand if you don’t want too.

Good Luck with the sale, it sure is a neat card no doubt about it.

Cheers,

John

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Posted By: barrysloate

Tom just called me and we had a very nice conversation. He is sincere about selling the card and I'm sure in the end everything will go smoothly.

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Posted By: Tom aka TE

Thanks to all and good luck to all interested,
Best,
Tom

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Posted By: JP

For everyone's information, I am the high bidder on the auction. I talked with Tom before and offered $8000 in a private deal (as I didn't want anyone to know I was the owner as I didn't want to handle inquiries in the future). Tom said he wanted to take his chances with the eBay auction. So I made my bid at $8000 and it has subsequently been bid up by other people up to exactly that point, but no further, which I find to be very odd (not implying anything shady on Tom's part by that statement).

And as my offer was rejected in a private sale, and my bid in the auction is not high enough to meet reserve, I guess I am permenantly out of the running for this card, which is why I'm willing to talk about it. If it doesn't sell on eBay, I most definitely will not be reinstating my $8000 offer. I do not like to be considered a backup while sellers look for alternate, better offers. I am sure Tom can understand that and I wouldn't expect him to come back to me for an $8000 purchase price. He seems like a genuinely good guy. I think this card is a beaut and I hope Tom hits his reserve and the card goes to a real collector.

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Posted By: Matt

perhaps someone with "influence" will step in and buy the card.

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Posted By: Jeff Lichtman

JP, that's why you should use a sniping service.

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Posted By: JP

I do use a sniping service for 99% of my bids. Why would I use a sniping service for this auction? I didn't want to wonder if my $8000 bid would meet the reserve or not, so I just made it at the beginning of the auction. Obviously a sniping service would not have served any purpose in this instance.

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Posted By: Jeff Lichtman

Well, you said that 8K was your last and only offer. So why would you care if you learned that it met the reserve right away if you hadn't planned on making a higher bid? What I'm simply saying is that you expressed some concern as to why your initial bid was run up to it's max without surpassing it; a sniping service would have allayed those concerns -- but as you said you use a sniping service 99% of the time so you already are aware of it.

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Posted By: Tom aka TE

JP, I told you that if you were the high bidder on the card I would sell it to you. I will sell i to whoever the highbidder is, period. I should just have lowered the resaerve to $8K, I made the number a little higher, but it is not a big deal. My intent is to sell this card.

I hate to do it, I have had it for 35 years, it has seen me through some real hard times, but that is the way it is.

I don't know who the under bidder is, but I found it a bit strange that he inched the bidding up to your number then checked out, but maybe there is a plan there.

Best, Tom

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Posted By: JP

You told me that you would sell it to me if I was high bidder AFTER I had already bid $8000. You don't really see how that is unfair to me? You basically are guaranteeing yourself AT LEAST $8000 instead of just selling to my $8000 offer. That will not fly with me and wouldn't with anyone else.

Is the bidder who bid it up to my price a legit bidder or some low feedback ghost? I can't see any bidder information at all. What if the highest any legitimate bidder would bid was at $4000? Were you going to sell to me at $4100, or hold me to my $8000 offer? My offer was good before you listed it, as I mentioned. And I told you I had bid $8000 on the ebay auction. But if the reserve is not met, then there is no sale.

You want to relist it with no reserve and I'll bid again, but then you don't have the protection of my $8000 offer any more. Then it could sell for $2000. I'm not about to pay $8000 if I'm the higher bidder in a private auction with no reserve met. No one would.

JP

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Posted By: JP

Jeff,

You posed the question "Well, you said that 8K was your last and only offer. So why would you care if you learned that it met the reserve right away if you hadn't planned on making a higher bid?"

I care because I like to know how much cash I have available to me. If when I bid the $8000 the reserve was met, then I would not be bidding in Huggins & Scott, 19thCenturyOnly and SCP auctions as agressively as I am, because I would know that my money was tied up in the Young Ghost. But now that I can see that the auction won't be won by me, that money is now freed up. Like everyone else, I need to know what funds I have available to me...

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Posted By: Jeff Lichtman

That makes sense.

I wonder what would happen if people with reserves on their auctions simply listed the reserve price? Or just started the auction out at the 'reserve' price? Is there any downside?

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Posted By: JP

Tom,

Also, so you know, if you had lowered the reserve to $8000 AFTER I had already placed the $8000 bid, then eBay automatically makes my bid $1 below the reserve price. Here is the eBay explanation...

"If the seller lowers the reserve price below the high bidder's maximum bid (proxy) amount, the high bidder's maximum bid will be automatically lowered so that it is one dollar below the new reserve price. This prevents high bidder who was not previously obligated to purchase from being turned into a winning bidder without his or her knowledge."

I don't want to be turned into the winning bidder when I thought I was out of the running a week ago when I placed my $8000 bid and the reserve wasn't met.

JP

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Posted By: Steve Murray

JP

You are out of the running. Auction shows "Reserve Not Met".

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Posted By: Rob D.

JP,

I might be the only one wondering this, but I have to ask anyway: Why wouldn't you discuss all of your points with Tom privately, either by e-mail or phone, instead of airing them in public? And why wait until the final hours before the end of the auction?

Again, just curious. I don't mean anything personal.

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Posted By: Tom aka TE

JP,
No, the under-bidder was not a zero, but I found the bidding pattern odd. You were the one who warned me that someone might bid up to the high bid amount, then cancel the bid, so I lowered the reserve.

If you want to see all the emails back and forth between us, I will send them on, but I have never been duplicitous in this.

You're making a mountain out of a molehill, if you end up with the card, great, what;s the worry?

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Posted By: Tom aka TE

JP is not out of the running if he doesn't want to be.

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Posted By: JP

Tom,

1. I'm glad to see that I am outbid, as now it will be a non-issue.
2. I wish you the best of luck in getting this to meet the reserve.
3. If this doesn't sell, I wouldn't try to resell. This card will only go up in value over time.

JP

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Posted By: JP

Rob D.,
To answer your questions...

"Why wouldn't you discuss all of your points with Tom privately, either by e-mail or phone, instead of airing them in public? And why wait until the final hours before the end of the auction?"

My intention was not to even communicate with Tom at all on this forum. My original posting was to alleviate some of the concerns that Robert (Bigb13) and John (Wonkaticket) had expressed in the posts immediately preceeding Tom's post titled ""Private Listing" is a Mistake that I am unable to correct." I wanted them, and others, to know that at least the lead bidder on this auction was legitimate, so there shouldn't be any hullabaloo around whether the bidders were suspect. Since it is a private listing, no one has any idea if the lead bidder is someone like me with a lot of feedback, or a zero. If anything, I am encouraging further bidding as I think Tom is a good guy and this card is a worthwhile investment.

JP

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Posted By: Rob D.

Thanks, JP. I really wasn't trying to imply anything, and I had completely forgotten that this was listed as a private auction.

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Posted By: Dave F

I hope Tom gets what he is wanting money-wise as well. So don't mean this to sound bad against Tom. However, in my opinion I don't see anything wrong with having started the auction off at your bottom barrel number you'd take for it. I do think however the worst thing to have done is having made the bidders private. From what I've seen in the past it seems many just won't get into that game, even if all the bids are legit. The point is nobody can tell for sure what is going on.

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Posted By: Matt

I think he acknowledged the fault of making the bidders private. Perhaps if reserve is not met, he will re-list without that mistake.

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Posted By: Adam

Wow, sold for just shy of 10k, not bad!

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Posted By: Rob D.

Congrats!

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Posted By: Jeff Lichtman

Only one person bid above $8400 and hit the reserve. Hiding the bidders' IDs really hurt this auction.

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Posted By: Tim

Congrats TE!

Such an interesting card. I could never bring myself to spend that kind of money on it, but I do love it.

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Posted By: leon

Why do you say that? In a major auction no one would know the bidders. Just curious...

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Posted By: JP

I hope it was a legit bidder. Maybe Tom can fill us in...

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Posted By: Jeff Lichtman

Because anonymous bidding is expected in an auction house auction; on ebay it is not and just raises too many red flags.

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Posted By: leon

I think it was probably a legit bidder....but yes red flags do go up....Tom (hi Tom) gave a pretty good account of himself for that mix up....

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Posted By: Jeff Lichtman

Yes -- but the readers of this thread are a tiny fraction of those who would be bidding on the card. Maybe the explanation could have been put on the ebay listing.

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Posted By: leon

All it takes is a tiny fraction....but you make a good point. Maybe it would have gone for more? I thought that was a lot of money, but who knows anymore....I am sure the winner, if legit, will be happy with it. It's neat looking that's for sure.

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Posted By: Adam

If it was in error to make it a private auction, maybe the seller can post here the eBay user name of who won?

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Posted By: Tom aka TE

Winner is legit and very smart in my eyes to have scooped this card up. it is the king of all reverse error cards, and a t206. I'm saying goodbye to an old friend. Maybe buyer will cut me in for 5% if he/she ever relists.

Just for old times sake!

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Posted By: Matt

I'd think he'd need the winning bidder's permission to do that; that bidder may have bid only because he thought his ID wouldn't be exposed.

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Posted By: Rob D.

Adam,

I think that would be a huge mistake. Right now the only person the seller should be concerned about is the high bidder. And who knows, the private-auction format might have appealed to the high bidder. Posting his/her eBay name here would serve no purpose. IMO, of course.

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Posted By: Tim

From what I read "the tiny fraction" of people on this board tha showed interest in this card put the value at between $3000-$5000. TE gave a good explination for the bidding being private and I can understand after all he had gone through not wanting to pull the auction after his error and listing it again.

In the end his RESERVE was met and if the bidder was legit all we be pleased with the end result.

Shouldn't that be good enough?

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Posted By: Tom aka TE

As far as ID of winner, that goes to grave with me until he/she says "It's me!"

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Posted By: MVSNYC

there's WAY too much discussion on here about this auction (the card is amazing, that's a given)...but there was/is way too much talking going on about this eBay auction..."i bid this, he bid that, reserve not met, i offered him x amount"...keep it private guys.

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Posted By: leon

What do you mean? Can't we all talk about a card with the person selling it involved? I think whoever bought it paid way too much btw......this was a 3k card at the most

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Posted By: Jeff Lichtman

Perhaps we can start another thread on this?

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Posted By: MVSNYC

i agree Leon...as i said at the top of this thread, it is a $4500 card, at most...i'm happy for tom that he did really well on it (even tho he had visions of $40K+)...

of course we can talk about whatever we want, but as i scroll thru this thread, there just seems to be WAY too much discussion happening specifically about the auction...as someone noted above, the dialogue between JP & tom should be a private one...

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Posted By: leon

I agree with what you said and I was kidding about my valuation of it. It's just me starting trouble again .....regards and talk to ya soon