Yes Peter, I really think they are. They were the ones that let it affect individual consignors and collectors. The non-payers didn't do that. They may not even have known that a default would do that. The consignors certainly didn't know it. Mastro was the only one that could control that outcome.
Somehow it is different with a consignment. It's not the same as Company X buying raw materials from Company Y with 30-day terms and then not being able to pay Y because the customers of X didn't come through.
With consignments, you are trusting someone with your individual specific property. You aren't selling them inventory on a commercial basis. The process and duty seems different.
This is why I think I may miss something in these kinds of situations. I do look at the consignors that got shafted as the innocent victims - individuals and collectors that trusted Mastro with selling cards for them. Maybe that's where I'm naive. If these consignors are all, themselves, turning these things over as part of an ongoing business, then maybe it is more like the commercial vendor selling inventory as a matter of course.
But it seems to me that just because the back half of the process - the relationship between the auctioneer and dealer/bidders - looks more like a normal commercial environment, the front half where the consignors are still looks sort of like innocent individuals.
J
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