I agree my post involved different issues. Assorted thoughts rather than linear theory.

But some people really do boast on this board that they don't mind being shilled.

Who said anyone should stop collecting because of the fraud? I'd just like to see the end of the covering up for the crooks as well as those who claim that fraud isn't a big deal and "just put in a bid you're comfortable with and if you're shilled you'll still be ok." That would be a nice start. Because if we can't even describe fraud for what it is then we obviously have a problem of stupidity in the hobby which at least rivals that of the fraud.

I've seen some idiotic things on this forum but this one might take the cake.

Just read all 11 pages. This is the best comment I've read.

I took a stand with Probstein when it was pointed out to him that his consigners were shilling and he did nothing about it. I haven't bid on any of his cards since. It's been tough because he's definitely had some nice cards that were tempting.

LOL, and the only way to stop home invasions is to leave all your valuables out on the lawn :D

totally agree...I will never understand those on this board who see shilling as a necessary component of buying vintage baseball cards...and are not bothered by it?

it's like paying the mafia off to merely exist?

That would be one heck of a strategy! In all seriousness, 99% of these crazy shilled up auctions are the result of some fool bidding against himself (the shiller). If people would simply set a snipe to what they feel the card is worth then most of these situations would be avoided and the shill bidder will just keep winning the card.

Case in point, this Johnson card is worth maybe $1,100. If everyone sticks to what the card is worth then the card will just go back to the consignor/shiller. The consigner will (presumably) pay his consignment fees and consign the card again, it doesn't sell again and the process repeats itself. It will keep repeating itself until the consignor eventually doesn't shill and accepts that the card is only worth $1,100. It's the crazy bidders who NEED this card that create such a rampant shilling problem.

This wouldn't happen if the consignor shills under a 0 feedback account and becomes nonpaying bidder. Then what probably would happen would be that PWCC would give the underbidder a 2nd chance offer or re-list for the consignor in the next auction. Since PWCC didn't know the consignor was nonpaying bidder, they wouldn't charge a consignment fee.

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddes...g/02/art.crime

Shill? what Shill?

ebay? very interesting...

David thanks. You and Scott and I seem to be in a minority here but so be it. I am sure I could protect myself and still bid but that isn't the point.

I have a question. I hope I don't get reamed for asking but if these two guys are known for unethical practices, how are they still allowed to be advertisers on this site when so many seem to agree that they do not provide the collecting community with legitimate auctions?

This is not rhetorical I am really curious.

That's a very good question...and I think the answer is that many people don't blame these sellers...because as many auctions as they have....how could they possibly regulate all bidding activity...they blame the consigners who are actually doing the shilling.

I can assure you that the fraud in these auctions is not limited to the consigners. To suggest otherwise is just false.

What if..... 100 members here complained to ebay on an auction in the future where Shilling could be proven. Perhaps some sort of mass action could force ebay to address the system. I am sure there computers could figure it out if they looked into it.
But could a member here identify an indisputable auction
( yet to occur) with enough time to try and mount a complaint campaign to try and force action?
If enough ebay participants complained and ebay feared the "prove-able case of shilling" reached the media they may indeed act to protect their reputation. I would gladly partake.
Accusations are one thing and proving it is another.
I too once had a feedback score of 0 or 20 & I was on the up and up. I would love to see something which could be acted upon


http://www.theguardian.com/artanddes...g/02/art.crime

Sure...agreed.

Not meaning to be argumentative here, Gary, but when was the last time a work of art had the impact that Jackie Robinson's breaking of the color barrier did upon not only baseball, but America itself? After 9/11 happened, did you see thousands of New Yorkers huddled around a Van Gogh at the Met? Nope, the only Met that was lifting people's spirits was Mike Piazza when he hit the game winning home run on 9/21 at Shea. Baseball, not some Degas painting of a bunch of ballerinas, helped heal this country. The history of baseball, and the history of this nation, are intertwined. Baseball cards are valued, and will always be valued, because they help us celebrate the history of our country. To dismiss baseball cards as "only pieces of cardboard", and say they are not the fabric of society is puzzling. I would say that baseball cards are in fact more a part of the fabric of society than a piece of art is.

You mentioned old coins. What intrinsic value do they have? Show me a 1920 nickel, and I'll tell you it's worth 5 cents because there's an active government backing the value of that coin. It's only worth more in certain circles because people have determined old coins have more value. What about coins from ancient civilizations? Again, they have value, and are collectible, because somebody is willing to pay more money to acquire it. If I melted those coins down, what would they be worth? Nothing, unless the coins were gold or silver. Then, they would have value as a commodity anywhere in the world. But nobody would care that that gold or silver came from an old coin.

Art? I can get a canvas, and throw a bunch of paint at it, and try to sell it on Ebay, I won't get a single bid. But, if I were to take that exact same piece of "art", throw it on Ebay with the title "Jackson Pollock masterpiece", you'd get the snobs of the art world tripping over themselves to acquire it. Why? Because people have placed value on paintings from the masters. Van Gogh died penniless. Nobody cared about his paintings while he was alive. It was only later when people identified the tortured genius in his work that they also deemed it had value. Nobody cares about where Van Gogh studied art. If you ask the average person bidding on a painting by Jan Van Eyck, or Rembrandt, or Monet, they're not going to have a clue under which master they might have studied.

Anything can have value. The Star Wars figures I played with as a child are highly collectible. Original, mint on card copies of the "twelve back" figures sell for thousands of dollars.

I don't understand the whole modern art thing. The decisions of the cognoscenti as to who is a master and who isn't seem, for the most part, highly arbitrary and capricious.

I love that last post Mr. Gregory.

Bill, it is good to read about your love of cardboard and baseball. Please don't get me wrong. I love collecting baseball cards also. I collected when I was a kid, and I had a lot of fun buying packs at the local drugstore in town or before a Little League game. I exchanged cards with my friends in school, and I really enjoyed it. I still have many of my cards from back then, and although they are worthless in value, there is still a lot sentimental value there. I enjoy collecting today to somewhat relive those times during my childhood, and also to obtain some of the cards I could never dream of obtaining when I was a kid. In addition, it's very enjoyable learning the history of the different baseball cards, and it's a different type of experience in collecting the cards in of itself than when I was a kid.

Moreover, I could never collect art. Most of it's bulky, and I can't understand 99% of it. I much prefer to hang pictures of my family on the walls of our house than any painting or print of a noteworthy painting. However, I still believe that art is a different level of collectible than baseball cards.

So, I will reply to your argument this way. If you could only save one of these, your ten favorite or what you consider most important baseball cards ever, or this one painting of George Washington painted in 1796 by Gilbert Stuart (the Lansdowne portrait), which I’ve attached, and currently hanging in the Smithsonian Museum, which would you choose? A description of this painting is here (Link), and in brief the painting shows Washington refusing a third term as President. Note that there are copies of it painted by the same artist, but this would be the original. You could save only one, and the other would be incinerated and lost forever. Which would you choose?

I think it's just far too reductive an analysis, to create an Art vs.
Sports collectible debate, and then boil it down to George Washington versus Babe Ruth, so to speak. Again, I'd urge an embracing of both art and sport in any balanced culture.

For every portrait of a Founding Father in a critical historical moment, there is a Jeff Koons sculpture that sells for a head-scratching sum. This type of Internet debate can quickly devolve because there are myriad examples anyone can select to stress either point. Let's resist the impulse to pit these two important realms against one another. There is room for both and collectors of both, and one need not occupy a "higher" level than another. Neither is on the societal chopping block.

After all, one can easily argue that an athlete at the pinnacle of human physical perfection and achievement, be it Jesse Owens or Michael Jordan or a young Mantle, winds up inspiring more people, and occupying a dearer place in more hearts, than many a fine art piece.

Thankfully, the hypothetical choice to sacrifice art or sport is one that our culture will not have to face.

It's never good to say what you collect is better and has more intrinsic value than what the other guy collects. Just because you think Jackie Robinson breaking the color line is more important than van Gogh's "A Starry Night" doesn't make you right. It's just an opinion. People who collect are passionate about what they like, and it's important to respect that.

The great coin collections, stamp collections, art collections, classic jazz album collections, or your Aunt Rose's hummel collection mean a great deal to the people who spent the time to put them together and to study the history behind them.

Cards and Art
 

I wonder how many baseball cards the Monuments Men rescued from the Nazis. :).

Babe Ruth Sanella cards?

Well..................

To follow the stated hobby logic, I'd save the cards. Because just like Broders, the painting can't have any value because the painter could always paint more. (And actually did) :rolleyes:

The comparison is a good one in some ways. if I were to pick a handful of cards, the similarities would be that they and the painting would represent events and actions that altered out country in some way and that the alteration was one that remained.
Washington refusing a second term became a tradition that wasn't made law until 17 years after it was broken in 1940.

Obviously something that affected the countries politics and still does over 200 years later.

But an early card of Jackie Robinson? - a 49 leaf to make it easy. Also represents an act that represented a huge change in the US. And while it was less of a solitary act then one involving several people I would make the stretch that as a milestone in a movement that eventually had worldwide influence decades later it could be seen as equivalent historically.

Steve B

They had to send reinforcements to get all the Sanella Ruths out.

A bunch of responses, in no particular order.

As far as the discussion about shilling and where the line must be drawn, I can see some merits to both arguments. My wife and I disagree similarly about a few issues- we agree at the core things are not what they should be, I tend to be more vocal about complaining, while she'll let stuff slide.

So.
Shilling is wrong.
Shilling is a crime.
Shilling happens - probably a lot more than we'd all like to think.

Sometimes it's allowed to happen, either by design or by circumstances.

But.
"We" are often very quick to see shilling everywhere (Perhaps correctly)
I've had instances where I believed shilling was going on, but was later proven wrong. (Happily so, I got a second chance offer on a cycling jersey I thought was unique, passed, then later won the second one which happened to be nicer from the same seller. )


I used to think policing thousands of auctions for odd patterns and bidders with a lot of retractions was an expensive and difficult task. Then someone here wrote a tiny bit of software and found a number of odd patterns in minutes. So it's not an impossible task for shills or simply odd patterns that happen early.
I'm not so sure about the same events if they're within the last few minutes. Ebay probably doesn't allow automated refusal of bids in any way. If they do, someone write that app, and get it out there!

For those who don't see the problem or don't believe it has possibly altered the prices of all cards.

I believe it has. And here's why.

Lets say that only fairly expensive cards get shilled (Don't get on this, it's a false over simplification)
So maybe a card that's in high grade becomes worth shilling. And they sell fairly often in auctions. Maybe its a $500 card. But in an auction it gets shilled to 750, That becomes the new value for a similar copy. After a few have sold at 750, maybe a bit higher since it's "on its way up" 750 really becomes the value. And maybe the shillers reach a bit farther. ..........eventually it becomes a $1500 card. And because it's valuable, the price of the lesser condition copies go up as well. Many people assign value to lower condition examples based on what the better examples are worth. say the 1500 card is EX. but I figure a VG might be worth 50%.
The shilling of the EX card has essentially cost anyone buying a VG version an extra $250.

Even without shilling - say I have a friend of mine actually buy the card. Or, we get together and buy as many VG cards as we can for 350 when they're going for 250. Then we shill or simply buy and sell the same EX card a few times to establish a higher market price. And make claims that all of that card are going up -way up since it's had huge increases. Then we sell off the VG cards at 500, making a tidy profit.

That's exactly why the stock market has rules against people actively dealing in stocks they promote, and against certain buying and selling patterns.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pump_and_dump

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Front_running

Some similar things don't always work out
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunt_brothers

If you take the market for cards and other collectibles as a commodity market, which is part of the point of grading. All of that applies.

Whether someone takes the high road of abandoning any market or seller that encourages or condones that stuff
Or The middle road of only participating in some auctions.
Or Ignores it all and only bids what they think is fair

Is up to them.
And I guess that will have to be ok, fraud has been an always will be with us.

I'd like to think that those ignoring it at least do so knowing that even without active participation the cost of their collectibles might be artificially inflated beyond what would be normal.

Steve B

The concern of a market artificially inflated by shilling is a red herring, in my view. It is an argument used solely to respond to the shilling-indifferent in an effort to point out a tangible cost of shilling. However, if ebay eliminated all auctions and went solely with a BIN feature, where shilling would be impossible, you would be left with the same potential for market inflation as you have today as a result of false sales of items.

To me it's simple: people hate shilling because they perceive that they overpaid for an item. My response is (1) don't pay more than you want to pay for something, and (2) there is no parallel market where shilling is eliminated and things become cheaper as a result. The elimination of shilling just means higher BINs for everyone.

But, finally, of course it is good to out the auctioneers who engage in shilling. Smart consumers do well to be alert to such pricing fraud. I do not think that being alert to shilling is antithetical to my views on this matter.

And how do you avoid that if you're shilled up?

I think the moral of the story is: if you want to collect desirable vintage baseball cards...you should be prepared to OVERPAY for them!

I think what T206 means is this, and I am writing this in the mind of a hypothetical buyer...

1. Here is a card I want.

2. Based on my budget, I'd be happy paying $100 for it.

3. Oh, it's at auction on ebay now? Cool. Let me check the auction real quick to see if any shilling's been going on. No? Okay, I will bid $100 for it, go about my life, and then get an email when the auction ends. I sure wish I could watch this auction like a hawk, but, you know, life.

4. 7 DAYS LATER... Great-- I won it for $100 (or less).

5. Now I will pay, receive the card, and enjoy the card.

6. But wait-- what if I was shilled, and could have paid less? Should I have taken time from my job to monitor the bidders' and their profiles, then have retracted my bid?

And what if that $100 I was okay paying was really subliminally influenced and placed in my mind as an okay price by past shills over the years-- and thus in a parallel universe the card is really worth $88.17?

Maybe I should invent the flux capacitor to go back and pass on that conference call or workout or sex with my wife or fun with my kids to stare at that bidding history. Or maybe I should quit my career and invent a portal to the shill-free dimension. (Just think of what I could charge for entry! I'm gonna be RICH!)

7. Ah, know what, I suck at this whole flux capacitor thing-- I'll just be happy with my card. It gives me such joy, and life presents far more pressing headaches. I do wish I had the time to watch auctions in which I am bidding like a hawk, and walk away anytime I sense the presence of a shill bidder, but that's just not the case. I do think shilling is a criminal, abhorrent practice, and I will definitely tell my collecting colleagues what happened to me, but I certainly am not going to beat myself up or lose sleep over having bid on a card I wanted for my collection. I paid an amount I was okay with paying and am happy with my purchase. THE END.

Note to self:

Avoid all ebay sellers whose name start with a "P".

Prob.
Pwcc.
Pank.

Perhaps Prob. and Pwcc will merge someday and call themselves "PeePee Auction House"...

The same way I avoid it when I buy something at a fixed price.

My comment on shilling is, if an auctioneer does one thing unethical in order to covertly trick customers out of money, you can safely assume the auctioneer is doing more than one thing unethical. The motive in to secretly trick customers out of money-- why would they stick with just one covert method to achieve that? And customers often can only guess what the other unethical things might be. Remember that Mastro wasn't sent to prison for just shilling-- the charges were for shilling, altering and misrepresenting items at sale. Perhaps other things. He had a variety of methods to cheat bidders out of money.

This is why I say that collectors are fools when they participate in auctions where they know unethical (and in the case of shilling, possibly illegal) practices are going on. The bidders have don't know what other ways they may be being scammed? Are items altered? Is essential information omitted from descriptions? Does the auctioneer handle material from consignors he knows are unethical or alterers? Do know who are the consignors?

And, ask yourself, how sellable will your collection be 15 years from now, when potential buyers learn you bought 60% of it from an auctioneer who served time in prison for massive shilling fraud? And, even worse, what will these customers think when they learn that you knew about and defended on a chatboard the auctioneer's illegal practices while they were happening? What will this say to them about your ethics and your reliability as a seller? When I read the game used universe board, I read posts from people who are suspicious of items that come with a Mastro LOA-- even though the items may be (and perhaps probably are) legitimate. Though I think his knee jerk reaction was incorrect, one poster said he just assumed a game used item was altered because it came from a Mastro Auction.

In summary, if you participate in auctions where you know unethical (and even potentially illegal) things are going on, you are not only part of the problem, you are a fool. And don't come running back to this board when a seller you knew all along was willing to break the law to cheat customers out of money sold you a card that was intentionally misdescribed or known to be altered or cheated you out of shipping or deceptively manipulated scans. I might just have to say something sarcastic such as "Wow. Who would've thunk an unethical seller would do something unethical."

And sometime have a conversation with someone outside of collecting and see what they think of your brain capacity and grasp of common sense:

YOU: "I'll tell you, there are honest and dishonest sellers out there. There are some sellers you can trust with every word they say and there are some sellers who would sell his own grandmother to the Gypsies for five bucks. I've identified two sellers in particular on eBay who are total cheats and scammers, who literally break the law to cheat customers out of money. God knows what else they are doing."
HOBBY OUTSIDER: "So, naturally, you stay far away from those scammers."
YOU: "I don't get what you mean. Those are the auctions where I bid. That's where I get most of my stuff."
HOBBY OUTSIDER: "Uhhh. Maybe I missed something. Repeat everything you've said, but say it more slowly this time."
YOU: "Sorry, I forget. Understand that I was dropped on my head as kid."
HOBBY OUTSIDER: "That's what I kind of thinking. I noticed the dent on the side of your head, but wasn't going to say anything."

P.s. I don't follow eBay much, much less follow bid pattern charsm and am not accusing any current eBay seller of anything. I don't have enough knowledge to even comment on individual sellers And I'm also not a lawyer, and my legal references where hypotheticals and to prove general points. There are enough lawyers on board to point out when my People's Court education is lacking.

P.s.s, by 'you' I didn't mean you. I'm sure your head has no dents.

MattyC - that's the best post I've read here since I joined. I 100% agree except for the sex with the wife part - unless the auction is taking place on one of the four nights a year where that actually happens :D!!!

Very well said ......

What if you refuse to participate in an auction because someone on the board once saw something they don't like or for whatever reason calls foul? Does that make you a fool? What if you buy something in what you assume is a normal auction and later find out otherwise? Fool? If egg prices get manipulated do your kids never eat eggs?
99% of the folks here do not approve of illegal or manipulative actions. I think we all can collect how we wish without someone calling us fools, perhaps foolish of me to think so.

Correct, with one additional point: we make purchasing and selling decisions with imperfect information about market value all of the time. I just do not view the potential impact of shilling in an auction as all that different from my other daily fixed price transactions.

We've discussed this before and this is nothing more than an unprovable assumption. I could similarly argue that the elimination of shilling will produce LOWER BINs (than currently offered), but not necessarily as much as an un-shilled auction. But the elimination of shilling doesn't guarantee higher BINs for everyone.

General rule of thumb. The less manipulation of a free market, the lower the price.

If a seller's ability to artificially inflate prices is removed, why would he agree to voluntarily lower his real price? I just don't think that's how it works. If he can't shill a card he bought for $50 to $100, I don't think that'll mean he'll list it for $50. I think the fair assumption is that he'll raise his price as high as possible to get at the same buyer who was willing to pay $100. I don't think it is fair to assume that the seller will now sit on his hands and sell his items at auction with the uncertainty of the market. Frankly, I think the move to BINs of so many ebay sellers over recent years proves as much.

So the only way to avoid shilling is to buy fixed price items?

Skip regular auctions?

That said, I will generally put a bid out on what I am willing to pay for the item, but I always factor in the source of that item as well. As someone pointed out, a seller that turns a blind eye to shilling is likely to turn a blind eye to other sketchy things, if not actively participate in them. So that particular seller would also have a negative factor in my bid. Either making it lower, much lower, or not at all.

Me: Don't pay more than you want to pay for something.

DJ: And how do you avoid that if you're shilled up?

Me: The same way I avoid it when I buy something at a fixed price.

DJ: So the only way to avoid shilling is to buy fixed price items? Skip regular auctions?

Me: No. What I mean is that when I buy something at a fixed price I am often all too keenly aware that I may be overpaying for the item. But, I still buy things with price tags all of the time. Obviously buying items at a fixed price does not mean you bought something at the lowest possible price.

So what you are saying above is that a guy buys a card shilled from $50 to $100. And that same card won't be sold at a $50 BIN but a $100 BIN? So how is $100 more than $100???

The move to BINs could also be due to the artificially high prices from shilled auctions as well, couldn't it? Hmmmm... That might explain the ton of "museum pieces" that keep getting the same BINs over and over. Might also explain ebay's recent announcement to at least get a token 30 cents for the museum pieces or cough up a store subscription. Perhaps ebay DOES know more than us about how well BINs are working or not. If your theory (on the move to BINs) was correct, I think ebay would have moved in the other direction and made BINs free for the first 100 (rather than auctions).

Frank La Porte

$139.99 + $2 s/h for this T206 Frank LaPorte PSA 5 as a BIN:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/T206-FRANK-L...item3ce0e236f4

History of the sales of this card suggest the buyer grossly overpaid:

http://www.cardtarget.com/cgi-bin/gm...716722&grade=5

But, was the buyer an idiot or a fool? Is $139.99 a relevant price point for this card in the future? How can we confirm that this was an arm's length transaction between two consenting and rational adults? What if every seller tried to shill up to a price below this one going forward - would it manipulate the market?

For the record and in response to previous comment on my post, I specifically said bidding with an auctioneer where you know (are consciously and keenly aware) he is using unethical and possibly illegal practice(s) to covertly cheat customers out of their money. I didn't say anything about where you are ignorant to the practice(s).

And, yes, I do think it is a problem with this hobby that collectors continue to give money to auction houses they know cheat and break the law. These collectors supply the money that keeps the auction houses in business. As soon as the well of money goes dry in protest or response to the practices, the auction houses will either go out of business or change their practices.

Do I have a practical, real world solution to the previous paragraph? No. I am aware that many collectors follow the stuff and I never claimed to know how to heard cats. If a seller has a card a collector 'needs,' the seller has the card the collector 'needs.' . . . I put needs in quotes, because people don't really need a card. They just really, really want it. "The heart wants what the heart wants," as an old girlfriend once said.

Yes. That's why price manipulation and collusion are generally against the law.

Just pointing out that a high purchase of a BIN on ebay -- or a single bid at a high opening reserve -- has the same propensity to "manipulate" markets.

[QUOTE=drcy;1273249]For the record and in response to previous comment on my post, I specifically said bidding with an auctioneer where you know (are consciously and keenly aware) he is using unethical and possibly illegal practice(s) to covertly cheat customers out of their money. I didn't say anything about where you are ignorant to the practice(s).

And, yes, I do think it is a problem with this hobby that collectors continue to give money to auction houses they know cheat and break the law. These collectors supply the money that keeps the auction houses in business. As soon as the well of money goes dry in protest or response to the practices, the auction houses will either go out of business or change their practices.
__________________________________________________ ________

Once a bid is placed in any auction house it would seem all bidders are ignorant to who places additional higher bids or if the auction house just illegally pushes price up to a pre-existing max bid.
If you are aware of any auction house that "cheat and break the law" I would love to know about it and would avoid it! To me at least there is a vast difference between someone claiming "all his auctions are shilled" & someone proving that. I believe in the theory of innocent until proven guilty.

I always wondered what the motivation was for people to consign items to another seller to sell on eBay. Setting up an eBay listing is fairly easy to do on one's own. I understand for many people consigning a large number of cards makes sense rather than trying to manage many listings. And for some avoiding the tediousness of setting up the auction is worth the commission.

But now the cynic in me is thinking a lot of people do it because it allows them to shill their own auctions with impunity.

I used to wonder the same thing...I'd wonder how these huge "clearinghouses" could stay in business...and keep getting quantities of quality material...and continuously set record prices for certain cards sold...again and again.

It is much more clear these days!