Something Fishy Going on Here?

[mferronibc]

Ran across this yesterday and struck me as very strange. I'm not usually a conspiracy theorist but this raised a bit of a flag for me. Take a look at the two cards below - both have sold within the last month (one bought by me yesterday in full disclosure and I noticed this after the fact).

Anyone else think it is curious that the PSA certification numbers are only one off? Especially for such a high grade card with a qualifier that overall should be a pretty rare submission shouldn't it?

One step further, 43072565 is ALSO a '67 Aaron graded at an 8. This wouldn't seem too abnormal to me if these were '89 Donruss Griffeys or something that someone submitted a whole bunch at a time hoping for one to grade out a 10.

[Republicaninmass]

That actually makes sense. 3 of the same card in a row for the grader to compare and say "ok there is a 10 here somewhere". I've tried it before, never works though

[swarmee]

Nothing fishy. Big collectors/investors may have many raw copies of the same card that they submit at the same time.

[D.P.Johnson]

Probstein = Fishy.
C'mon, someone had to say it...

[mferronibc]

Yeah Daniel glad you brought them up. One thing I've noticed, hopefully just my paranoia, is every time I've won an auction with probstein it just so happens to be exactly the max bid I put in. Like if a card is currently sitting at $20 and I'm winning with an hour to go, but my max bid submitted may be $45.50, as time ticks down sure enough I end up winning for exactly $45.50.

Now I know there's a rush at the end of auctions as people are sitting on the sidelines and pounce at the last minute, but almost seems to me these big consignment houses have hacked eBay and know exactly what the highest bid submitted is out there then bid right up to that point with dummy accounts or something.

Is this a thing?

[swarmee]

Do a google search for shill bidding.

[lowpopper]

Originally Posted by mferronibc

Ran across this yesterday and struck me as very strange. I'm not usually a conspiracy theorist but this raised a bit of a flag for me. Take a look at the two cards below - both have sold within the last month (one bought by me yesterday in full disclosure and I noticed this after the fact).

Anyone else think it is curious that the PSA certification numbers are only one off? Especially for such a high grade card with a qualifier that overall should be a pretty rare submission shouldn't it?

One step further, 43072565 is ALSO a '67 Aaron graded at an 8. This wouldn't seem too abnormal to me if these were '89 Donruss Griffeys or something that someone submitted a whole bunch at a time hoping for one to grade out a 10.

These Aarons are nearly guaranteed to be from the
same wax/vending box. This means they came off
the same print runs so they seem identical. I send
runs of cards like this in all the time. Fairly common
occurrence.

[Mark17]

One other thing regarding ebay and shills: Don't go back and increase your bid when you are already winning. A shill bidder will check the bid history and if they see you are the high bidder and have made the 2 most recent bids, they know they can safely increase the bid until they beat the first (lower) of your 2 bids. You are telling them that you have already made a bid that is higher than your original max, so they can nudge the bid in between.

[mferronibc]

Great tips guys, thanks! Mark - I was actually doing that all the time not realizing I was a sitting duck!

[Exhibitman]

I always make a placeholder bid and a snipe via auctionstealer. Saved me thousands over the years. it is the only way I will bid on stuff from Probstein: either I get it for the minimum or my snipe.

I can tell you as an honest seller that I hate seeing two bids from the same sole bidder because I know there is money on the table I won't get if the item sells for that initial bid, but that's the price of integrity. Well worth it IMO.

[mferronibc]

Yeah I guess philosophically you can look at it from both sides. If as the buyer my max bid is truly how much I am ultimately willing to pay for something then maybe that should always be the amount of the sale. Anything under feels good to me as a “discount” but actually represents an imperfect market. When you look at an item the questions isn’t “what’s the most someone else is willing to pay for that and I’ll pay a dollar more” it should be “what am I willing to pay for it”, shouldn’t it?