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#1
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MEARS effort to help clean up the hobby. REA signs on.
Posted By: Joann
Well, the November 10 deadline that MEARS set has come and gone. Recall that MEARS had published a list of policies that they will use in 2008 in terms of accepting business from auction houses. The policy listed such things as requiring the auction house to divulge ownership in lots, to disclose ANY prep work done on a card before grading, to keep records of bidding to help prevent shilling, etc. |
#2
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MEARS effort to help clean up the hobby. REA signs on.
Posted By: barrysloate
Joann- a question: |
#3
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MEARS effort to help clean up the hobby. REA signs on.
Posted By: JimCrandell
Joann, |
#4
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MEARS effort to help clean up the hobby. REA signs on.
Posted By: barrysloate
Disclosure of ownership? Does that mean the auction house is obligated to reveal the names of their consignors? Isn't that confidential information? |
#5
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MEARS effort to help clean up the hobby. REA signs on.
Posted By: ps
I think Jim means they should disclose when the person who is purporting to authenticate an item also owns it and/or when the auction house itself owns the item. |
#6
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MEARS effort to help clean up the hobby. REA signs on.
Posted By: barrysloate
That makes more sense. But can every auction house be trusted to reveal that information honestly? |
#7
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MEARS effort to help clean up the hobby. REA signs on.
Posted By: ps
I think it is unrealistic to "audit" for shill bidding. |
#8
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MEARS effort to help clean up the hobby. REA signs on.
Posted By: jay wolt
Was MEARS the company that had the Dimaggio 56 streak bat |
#9
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MEARS effort to help clean up the hobby. REA signs on.
Posted By: Marc S.
Why would ANY auction company hand over its consignor lists and bidding records to MEARS? That is the one valuable differentiator that any auction house has -- and I cannot imagine that auction houses would willingly turn over this proprietary and sensitive data to MEARS for auditing purposes. Hell -- I'm a former auditor...and it was tough getting companies to release such data, even when required by law. As much as I applaud MEARS' efforts to clean up the hobby, they seem to have taken a holier-than-thou approach to all this, and it is unsurprising to me that their appeals received such a tepid response. |
#10
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MEARS effort to help clean up the hobby. REA signs on.
Posted By: Paul Moss
While this stance by Mears might seem to be lofty and noble, the fact of the matter is that this is one of the most illconceived and unrealistic platforms I could possibly imagine. |
#11
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MEARS effort to help clean up the hobby. REA signs on.
Posted By: barrysloate
Many bidders feel that if an auction house owns some of the lots, they will be more inclined to fiddle with the bids on them. Heck, I sometimes have my own lots in my auctions and those are always the ones that concern me the least. I'm much more sensitive to how my consignors do than how I do. |
#12
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MEARS effort to help clean up the hobby. REA signs on.
Posted By: Paul Moss
Barry |
#13
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MEARS effort to help clean up the hobby. REA signs on.
Posted By: Larry
Paul Moss hit this on the head, a socialistic society has no place in the collectibles market...Yes, I |
#14
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MEARS effort to help clean up the hobby. REA signs on.
Posted By: Jay
I also agree with Paul. I actually prefer auction houses that don't go along with this hobby equivalent of politically correct bull****. Who is MEARS and who made them the savior of the hobby? I will bid where the best cards are--end of story. |
#15
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MEARS effort to help clean up the hobby. REA signs on.
Posted By: barrysloate
I agree with the general consensus that Mears should stick with what they do best- authenticate game used bats and other related equipment. In that way they provide the hobby with a much needed service. But auditing auction houses and making determinations regarding baseball cards is not their domain. |
#16
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MEARS effort to help clean up the hobby. REA signs on.
Posted By: Marc S.
I'm really uncomfortable with the notion that outsiders to REA may be allowed to come in and audit my personal contact information, bidding data, etc. |
#17
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MEARS effort to help clean up the hobby. REA signs on.
Posted By: JimCrandell
Auction houses are doing nothing to slow down let alone stop the flow of altered cards selling at auctions. Anything that can get into a holder--who cares if it came from Donald the Doctor or Michael the Magician. They are in the business of auctioning whatever someone tries to pass off on them. Has a little surface crease that make it a 4--lets take it out and make it an 8-disclose this heck no why should we--this is socialism or politically correct bs--we can do what we want to--while we are at it who cares if we run up our bids to the top all price--is someone is stupid enough to give us a top all bid its his tough luck. Auctions are the best place to pass off altered graded material as cards are generally not inspected beforehand and most I presume would not accept a refund if a case could be made after the fact that the card was not legit. |
#18
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MEARS effort to help clean up the hobby. REA signs on.
Posted By: Anonymous
But Jim what can an auction house do? Presumably if a card is good enough to get by SGC or PSA, then Barry or Rob or Mastro isn't going to see the alteration either particularly in the slab. EDIT TO ADD I suppose one answer would be not to accept consignments from certain consignors, but that wouldn't work either as those people could just consign through someone else. |
#19
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MEARS effort to help clean up the hobby. REA signs on.
Posted By: JimCrandell
Peter, |
#20
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MEARS effort to help clean up the hobby. REA signs on.
Posted By: barrysloate
Jim- I guess we will keep having the same discussion. |
#21
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MEARS effort to help clean up the hobby. REA signs on.
Posted By: Anonymous
Well Jim just to follow up, you are a free market person, what is the economic incentive for an auction house to do what you suggest? EDIT TO ADD Turning down major consignments seems economically irrational. Hiring someone like Kevin to reject cards seems economically irrational. |
#22
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MEARS effort to help clean up the hobby. REA signs on.
Posted By: Charlie Barokas
Jim, |
#23
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MEARS effort to help clean up the hobby. REA signs on.
Posted By: JimCrandell
Peter, |
#24
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MEARS effort to help clean up the hobby. REA signs on.
Posted By: JimCrandell
Charlie, |
#25
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MEARS effort to help clean up the hobby. REA signs on.
Posted By: brian
"I'm really uncomfortable with the notion that outsiders to REA may be allowed to come in and audit my personal contact information, bidding data, etc." |
#26
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MEARS effort to help clean up the hobby. REA signs on.
Posted By: Fred C
Wow, a conundrum of sorts.
The bottom line is that we, the members of this board, kind of police a lot of what goes on with the Auction Houses. There are so many examples of this that I wouldn't know where to start. I suppose one (and I don't want anyone to feel I'm singling anybody out or that I'm trying to open any old wounds) would be a certain Auction House in Colorado that didn't disclose some radical alterations done on a 19th century card. A lot of "issues" like this make it to the surface. We, as a collecting community, become more cognizant of the fact that there are "issues" that we need to dealt with and we can only hope that the offending parties learned their lessons. I'd have to believe that the Auction Houses fear people with good memories. Like one of my best friends wife will tell you. I don't worry about my husband cheating, he's got a bad memory and he knows it. Bottom line, you can only hide/tell so many lies and then you lose your credibility. |
#27
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MEARS effort to help clean up the hobby. REA signs on.
Posted By: pas
Jim as best I can tell the stuff keeps going for record prices -- unless you subscribe to the theory that what you see in terms of prices realized may not always be real. If the prices are real, it would seem most people either trust the grading services or don't care, as long as the card is slabbed. And if that is the case, the economic incentive for someone to take a stand and say I won't accept consignments from x y and z, or I will insist on an independent review of slabbed cards before putting them into my auction, just isn't there right now. |
#28
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MEARS effort to help clean up the hobby. REA signs on.
Posted By: JimCrandell
Peter, |
#29
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MEARS effort to help clean up the hobby. REA signs on.
Posted By: barrysloate
Jim- my business model has worked fine for me for a very long time, and I have decided to keep it as is. I understand you won't be bidding but not everyone bids anyway, and there is no way to please everyone. I will still continue to do the best that I can. |
#30
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MEARS effort to help clean up the hobby. REA signs on.
Posted By: Charlie Barokas
Barry, |
#31
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MEARS effort to help clean up the hobby. REA signs on.
Posted By: barrysloate
Thanks Charlie. I can only do so much. I just can't have cards that have already been authenticated to be reexamined and reevaluated by another party. It just doesn't work for me, and I would lose my consignors along the way. They certainly wouldn't put up with it. |
#32
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MEARS effort to help clean up the hobby. REA signs on.
Posted By: JimCrandell
Charlie, |
#33
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MEARS effort to help clean up the hobby. REA signs on.
Posted By: Jeff Lichtman
I love the fact that MEARS will be determining what is right and what is wrong in the hobby. After all, if MEARS says that they are honest and without any conflict of interest, who am I to even think otherwise? |
#34
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MEARS effort to help clean up the hobby. REA signs on.
Posted By: barrysloate
Just out of curiosity: |
#35
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MEARS effort to help clean up the hobby. REA signs on.
Posted By: Dave F
Jim- |
#36
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MEARS effort to help clean up the hobby. REA signs on.
Posted By: JimCrandell
Dave, |
#37
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MEARS effort to help clean up the hobby. REA signs on.
Posted By: Red
Kevin sounds great. But what happens when a "Bob" comes by and becomes the 5th party grader of choice. Bob might use fancier words or come up with better card doctoring scare stories, and then we'll all be bad people, or won't be able to sleep at night, unless we pay Bob to look at all our previously 3rd & 4th party graded cards. How many new graders and authenticators need to be paid off in order for our cards to finally be deemed safe...at least for the moment? |
#38
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MEARS effort to help clean up the hobby. REA signs on.
Posted By: Charlie Barokas
Were erasers around in the nineties? |
#39
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MEARS effort to help clean up the hobby. REA signs on.
Posted By: Dave F
Jim, I'm not asking about getting them graded now. I'm asking about after your gone and your whoever you leave them to decides to sell them....would it not be ethical to make sure when they do go back into the hobby at that point to have them re-examined? Certainly Jim, if your concerned with the cards that are altered floating around now you wouldn't want your own that may be altered put back into the hobby in that condition? Unless your planning on taking them with you, thats a valid conern isn't it? If even 3% of your high end cards are in fact altered, that would be quite a number that your loved ones would be eventually throwing back into the mix... |
#40
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MEARS effort to help clean up the hobby. REA signs on.
Posted By: Paul Krause
Jay M. said: |
#41
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MEARS effort to help clean up the hobby. REA signs on.
Posted By: Jeff Lichtman
Wow. Nothing politcally (or ethically) correct about Mastro after reading that thread. |
#42
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MEARS effort to help clean up the hobby. REA signs on.
Posted By: pas
Jim I am sure I have heard many of the same things you have heard -- although not so much through the source you mentioned. |
#43
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MEARS effort to help clean up the hobby. REA signs on.
Posted By: pas
That thread is certainly an oldie but goodie. To Doug's credit, the description of the item was changed during the auction. |
#44
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MEARS effort to help clean up the hobby. REA signs on.
Posted By: Marc S.
are you really comfortable with an outside, for-profit company having access to all of your bidding records, personal information, etc. over the past few years? If not just REA, imagine that all the auction houses had this sort of information. And I certainly do not know what Mastro et al. do, but I know that universities have pretty sophisticated systems for measuring potential donor's asset bases, etc. Would you be comfortable with MEARS knowing what you have bid on in every auction for the last 10 years, what you won, how it increased, an assessment of the value of your collection, your net worth, etc? |
#45
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MEARS effort to help clean up the hobby. REA signs on.
Posted By: JimCrandell
Peter, |
#46
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MEARS effort to help clean up the hobby. REA signs on.
Posted By: pas
Marc I would be truly surprised if Rob Lifson's intention is to provide MEARS with that information. |
#47
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MEARS effort to help clean up the hobby. REA signs on.
Posted By: Jeff Lichtman
Peter, I agree. Hard to imagine Rob would allow an outside entity (with or without a Master's Degree) to have unfettered access to his bidding records and customer information. Perhaps Rob can clarify his position on this. |
#48
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MEARS effort to help clean up the hobby. REA signs on.
Posted By: davidcycleback
It's a curious policy, which I can imagine reasonable auction houses not wishing to agree to (auditing, for example). I assume the disclosure of ownership relates only to when the auction house or principle person is owner, and does not involve listing the names of consignors. As far as I know, MEARS doesn't have an email list. Lastly, the 'auditor,' is a by the book and straight as an arrow guy, and a Lt. Colonel in the Army. I can testify that he's as ethical and serious about his job as they come. |
#49
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MEARS effort to help clean up the hobby. REA signs on.
Posted By: Marc S.
but it is an implication of what MEARS specifically indicated on its unyielding policy: |
#50
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MEARS effort to help clean up the hobby. REA signs on.
Posted By: JimCrandell
Marc, |
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