The humor is a way of dealing with this for twenty plus years. You can't name another company like this, where they exclusively sell items that will never show up in another auction house with proper authentication (the authenticators that the auction community trusts for their opinions) and provenance.
It's a black comedy where a struggling periodical needs them to survive (and according to the blog, it was the other way around at one point), a journalist turned authenticator and a forensic. The target audience for this play is the person with little intelligence who thinks they can get a grand discount on a rarity, sometimes 95% off what other auction houses can command for the same item.
"I can't afford $20,000 for a Mel Ott single signed ball...Coach's says it's worth $20,000 and I am the winning bidder at $618!". That person will go the rest of his life thinking he got over with a hefty discount of $19,382 and what happens if he throws it up on eBay? It will probably be removed. What happens if they send it to PSA/DNA or JSA? Probably fail. What happens if they send it to Robert Edward or Legendary or Lelands? They probably won't want it.
So what does it come down to? They can send it back to Coach's (after a fuss) or find someone with a similar intelligence, the guy who is waiting for his money from Nigeria.
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