Heritage Auctions

[Jaybird]

Thanks for your response. I've tried to respond with care and tact and hoping that you're receive my questions in that spirit. Posting the Sound of Silence clip was a playful reminder that we were waiting for a response.

To your points:

Originally Posted by Heritage Sports

But I say this from my heart, and would say it if I were no longer a HA employee--this is the cleanest, most forthright and honest, most transparent business I've ever personally seen. I don't mean just the memorabilia business. Any business. That's a strong statement, I know. I wouldn't say it if it wasn't true. I might toe the company line, but I wouldn't be so adamant here. [/URL]

The problem I have with this statement is that it is without relative comparison. Just because it is the most honest you have been involved in doesn't mean that there are not problems that should be dealt with to improve the honesty and integrity that you believe the company has. The statement closes you off to improvement and change. It also doesn't matter if another company is doing worse. As an illustration: when someone (say my wife), tells me that she doesn't like something about me, I don't tell her that there are worse husbands. I actually listen to her and reflect on what it is she is trying to tell me. I ask that you do the same.

Originally Posted by Heritage Sports

The particular topic of this thread is no exception to the Heritage code--the policy of house bidding. Every bidder is looking for a bargain--we understand that bidders wouldn't want us in competition for material they're trying to buy. And could anybody doubt how easy it would be for us to simply have cousin Fred in Albuquerque place our house bids, never tell anybody, and whatever he wins just sell quietly and privately? But that wouldn't be honest. That wouldn't be transparent. We place bids in our auctions and we report that we do it. We report when we do it (seven days prior to the auction closing, never after). If we own material, we don't bid on it--we place posted reserves, or (more commonly) we just let it ride.[/URL]

This is THE PROBLEM. Because it is in the rules and stated and observed is not a good reason to do it. There have been many arguments in this thread and elsewhere why it is a problem both for consignors and bidders. The fact that (as you state above) "you could have cousin Fred do it" and you don't doesn't change anything. You might as well have cousin Fred do it because we don't know who is doing it. Does it state in the auction that the item was just bid up by the house? So, when I go to place the next bid I know that the house has bumped it up to its current level?

Also, When you buy it at that level and then put it in your store, do you cut the original consignor a piece of that secondary sale? Shouldn't the consignor that put their faith and trust in your sales skills be the beneficiary of that secondary sale? Why should they sell to you at wholesale level only for you to reach a secondary profit?

It doesn't sit right with me as a consignor or bidder. If as a consignor I saw my item sell for more a few months after my auction with you, I'd think that you didn't do right by me and sold it in a way that maximized profit for you but not me. Why not advise me to sell in your secondary market in the first place? Divert items from your auction to that market and thus eliminate the need for you to buy Wholesale and compete with your bidders? Just stop the practice of bidding on your own auctions. It isn't right.

It doesn't matter what happened in the past. We are where we are. Let's move forward and stop bidding on our own auctions. Please.