Heritage Live Auction -- Black Swamp debacle

[calvindog]

Originally Posted by barrysloate

If somebody in the hobby found these they would have done this much differently. This family was outside the hobby and likely didn't understand the nuances the way we would.

That said, if the cards went for 25% of their estimated value then clearly something didn't work out. The family may be happy because they have nothing into them and didn't even know they had them until a few months ago. I guess there are going to be some bargains down the road.

No one can possibly believe this family is happy after last night.

[T206Collector]

It would have been fraudulent not to disclose the material fact of other high grade E98s in their possession when trying to sell purportedly "low pop" cards.

My guess is they were wary of the indictments of the Legendary principals, and just wanted to make sure they weren't going to stand in front of a federal jury.

[ullmandds]

Really? So if they only had 1 or 2 graded...the pop would still be very low...probably unique. Technically they don't know how the others will eventually grade. This would be fraudulent?

Does this have anything to do with that whole "prudent" man stuff?

[T206Collector]

Originally Posted by ullmandds

Really? So if they only had 1 or 2 graded...the pop would still be very low...probably unique. Technically they don't know how the others will eventually grade. This would be fraudulent?

Does this have anything to do with that whole "prudent" man stuff?

My smiley face was intended to connote sarcasm. Maybe I should've used the winky eye!

[keithsky]

I would think they went with Heritage because of reputation they have and how big and experienced they are and if they told me I could get close to a million for these cards and only got 250,000 I think I would be a little disappointed even though it was money i didn't have. Would have made me think I should have gone elswhere. I would have trusted there knowledge of the market when they told me I could get a million. Always factors that dictate what something will sell for but the gap between a million and 250 is not even close. Still a nice chunk of money they never had

[WhenItWasAHobby]

I'm now looking at the auction pages of the Black Swamp cards and unless this is an error of some sort, those cards are already up for sale again. Each auction has a "Make Offer to the Owner" option. Then is states:

You now have the opportunity to acquire very rare items that may not be auctioned again for some time by making an anonymous offer that will make the owner sell. The owner of this item has indicated that they are entertaining offers on this item.

Could this mean Heritage themselves won the cards and are now selling them again? Something stinks here or am I missing something? If these items are up for sale, then it appears the winners weren't very serious about owning the cards.

http://sports.ha.com/c/item.zx?saleNo=7057&lotNo=80001

http://sports.ha.com/c/item.zx?saleNo=7057&lotNo=80002

[ullmandds]

ha ha...I'm a little slow this morning...too many celebratory gin and tonics last night!!!!

[Mrc32]

Originally Posted by WhenItWasAHobby

I'm now looking at the auction pages of the Black Swamp cards and unless this is an error of some sort, those cards are already up for sale again. Each auction has a "Make Offer to the Owner" option. Then is states:

You now have the opportunity to acquire very rare items that may not be auctioned again for some time by making an anonymous offer that will make the owner sell. The owner of this item has indicated that they are entertaining offers on this item.

Could this mean Heritage themselves won the cards and are now selling them again? Something stinks here or am I missing something? If these items are up for sale, then it appears the winners weren't very serious about owning the cards.

http://sports.ha.com/c/item.zx?saleNo=7057&lotNo=80001

http://sports.ha.com/c/item.zx?saleNo=7057&lotNo=80002

Well, given what I read in that other thread about Heritage that seems possible.

The consignors must be disappointed. I think this entire thing seems to have benefited Heritage much more than the consignors.

Had they spaced these out over time they could have gotten more money IMHO.

But there is no denying that anytime you take a set that is collected by probably 100-200 people and dump a ton more material on the market prices will be tough to keep high.

[David R]

I don't think any seller of baseball cards has a duty to disclose all the other cards he or she has and the grades or condition when selling. As long as there are no untruthful statements made - like this is the only high grade example - then there is no fraud.

[travrosty]

Originally Posted by David R

I don't think any seller of baseball cards has a duty to disclose all the other cards he or she has and the grades or condition when selling. As long as there are no untruthful statements made - like this is the only high grade example - then there is no fraud.

in agreement, when the doyle error came out, the first guy to find it didnt tell everyone to make it fair for everyone in the hobby to sell them to him at a fair price, he tried to buy up other doyles at the regular price. was that dishonest? no, he used info he had to his own betterment.

heritage dropped the ball on this one, fuuuuumble!

to do it this way,they would have been better off to burn all the wagner's except for the one graded 10, and put a million dollar price tag on it. what is the difference between that, and only disclosing the 10 wagner, putting a million dollar price tag on it, until it sells, then put out a 9 wagner, etc, then another 9, the prices will be less for each subsequent one, but the buyer has paid for FOB, (first on block).

something tells me if any auction house would have made the find themselves and owned it themselves, it would have been sold differently because in this instance the auction house looked out for the buyers as much as the sellers by disclosing the pop number and grades of all the cards beforehand, but an auction house that owned the cards outright, would have only looked out for one entity, THEMSELVES, which is fine, but let's do the same thing for the consignor then in this instance that they would have done for themselves. heritage or not, any auction house would have used the cards to their own advantage had they owned them outright.

[Matthew H]

Originally Posted by David R

I don't think any seller of baseball cards has a duty to disclose all the other cards he or she has and the grades or condition when selling. As long as there are no untruthful statements made - like this is the only high grade example - then there is no fraud.

How is "this is the only high grade example" truthful here? There were 700 high grade examples found. They could've stretched the truth by saying "This is the only highly graded example" if they only graded one in the find. Thankfully, since they weren't "in" the hobby, the odds of them being scumbags was lower then we're used too.

[botn]

And if Heritage, with the consignors' permission, had not disclosed the size of the find and not graded all the cards at once, there would have been a thread attacking them for fraud and misrepresentation. Seems like Heritage should have just told the consignors to take their crumby cards elsewhere. Boy, an auction house cannot win with Jeff around. Now cards cards selling for "too little" is a problem. YIKES!!!

I also do not think the printed estimates for the 3 lots totaled 1 million. Don't have the catalog any longer. I recall the Wagner stated 200K and up. That said I thought the cards would sell for more, not that they underperformed. The E98s were not the only items which did not command top dollar last night.

[calvindog]

Originally Posted by botn

And if Heritage, with the consignors' permission, had not disclosed the size of the find and not graded all the cards at once, there would have been a thread attacking them for fraud and misrepresentation. Seems like Heritage should have just told the consignors to take their crumby cards elsewhere. Boy, an auction house cannot win with Jeff around. Now cards cards selling for "too little" is a problem. YIKES!!!

I also do not think the printed estimates for the 3 lots totaled 1 million. Don't have the catalog any longer. I recall the Wagner stated 200K and up. That said I thought the cards would sell for more, not that they underperformed. The E98s were not the only items which did not command top dollar last night.

As I said, as long as a material misrepresentation wasn't made Heritage would be fine. This is more of a sales strategy issue than an ethical one obviously. And I agree the auction as a whole didn't do well. I suspect the same of Legendary's auction.

[Wymers Auction]

Originally Posted by WhenItWasAHobby

I'm now looking at the auction pages of the Black Swamp cards and unless this is an error of some sort, those cards are already up for sale again. Each auction has a "Make Offer to the Owner" option. Then is states:

You now have the opportunity to acquire very rare items that may not be auctioned again for some time by making an anonymous offer that will make the owner sell. The owner of this item has indicated that they are entertaining offers on this item.

Could this mean Heritage themselves won the cards and are now selling them again? Something stinks here or am I missing something? If these items are up for sale, then it appears the winners weren't very serious about owning the cards.

http://sports.ha.com/c/item.zx?saleNo=7057&lotNo=80001

http://sports.ha.com/c/item.zx?saleNo=7057&lotNo=80002

Correct me if I am wrong, but Heritage is offering this on every past lot they have ever sold. They become the messenger between you and the buyer to negotiate a sale on anything sold in the past. This is not exclusive to the Black Swamp find. It in no way means Heritage owns the cards it would be more of an agent situation between the buyer and seller.

[WhenItWasAHobby]

Originally Posted by Wymers Auction

Correct me if I am wrong, but Heritage is offering this on every past lot they have ever sold. They become the messenger between you and the buyer to negotiate a sale on anything sold in the past. This is not exclusive to the Black Swamp find. It in no way means Heritage owns the cards it would be more of an agent situation between the buyer and seller.

OK. I now see that they do it on more then those two auctions, but they do bid on their own auctions, so its still possible they are the winners any of those auctions.

[brianp-beme]

The estimate I saw in the paper (a national press release) was that the lots had an estimate of about $500,000 total, and that the bidding on these lots reached $566,000. One million seems an out of line estimate to me. In the long run I think the family did good, as long as they time the release of future lots/singles in a way that will maintain interest in this incredible find.

Brian

[E93]

I think they did it the right way. It was honest. For what it is worth, the three lots sold for about a half a million. The Wagner was $238k with juice, the set was over $280k with juice, and the other lot went for over 40k with juice. Those numbers were about what I expected given what is lined up behind them. Still impressive! The other factor is Heritage got a ton of press due to the enormity of the find which would not have happened if they slowly leaked them. It is hard to know how that will impact all this in the short and long term. The bottom line in my book is that it was the honest way to do it.
JimB

[calvindog]

Originally Posted by E93

I think they did it the right way. It was honest. For what it is worth, the three lots sold for about a half a million. The Wagner was $238k with juice, the set was over $280k with juice, and the other lot went for over 40k with juice. Those numbers were about what I expected given what is lined up behind them. Still impressive! The other factor is Heritage got a ton of press due to the enormity of the find which would not have happened if they slowly leaked them. It is hard to know how that will impact all this in the short and long term. The bottom line in my book is that it was the honest way to do it.
JimB

Easy for you to say -- you weren't told the cards would fetch $3 million. And it wouldn't have been dishonest to sell them slower without getting them all graded at once -- unless a material misrepresentation was made.

[jimross]

"fraudulent not to disclose the material fact of other high grade E98s in their possession when trying to sell purportedly "low pop" cards."???

That's a fraudulent act??? yeah right! Come on!!!!

If u have three Honus Wagner signed t206 and want to sell one, I am 100% certain u wouldn't want to tell people u have two more to sell later.

[jimross]

I talked to a HA personnel last night, he said they have been getting low ball offers for those "lesser" grade Black Swamp find cards after the auction. One offer was $5k for a PSA-9 Wagner and the consignor actually accepted the offer after the auction ends last nite. I guess the consignor learnt his lesson and try to dump those cards to the market before they crash become trash.

I don't think the consignor family would waste their time for those endless interviews if they know they would get ~$1M for the whole collection.

[Matthew H]

Originally Posted by jimross

I talked to a HA personnel last night, he said they have been getting low ball offers for those "lesser" grade Black Swamp find cards after the auction. One offer was $5k for a PSA-9 Wagner and the consignor actually accepted the offer after the auction ends last nite. I guess the consignor learnt his lesson and try to dump those cards to the market before they crash become trash.

I don't think the consignor family would waste their time for those endless interviews if they know they would get ~$1M for the whole collection.

I'm going to have to disbelieve this statement for now, since you didnt accidentally rip the back of your jeans off reaching for your wallet when you heard 5k. The "gem mint" version just sold for 40x that number.

Also, Heritage is too money grubby (signed, Matt Hall) to accept that kind of low ball offer. They could get more then that on eBay.

They'd have to average close to 4k per card to hit around the 3mil estimate mark. That estimate was too high. In another thread, a board member estimated 25k for each Cobb. That seems like a more reasonable number.

[Wite3]

Umm...

could it be investors (not collectors) who buy high end material might be a little gun shy of auction houses right now as well? (b/c of the mastro fiasco)

Joshua

[Matthew H]

Originally Posted by Wite3

Umm...

could it be investors (not collectors) who buy high end material might be a little gun shy of auction houses right now as well? (b/c of the mastro fiasco)

Joshua

They also might know that there are 20 more similar sets available.

[npa589]

Originally Posted by calvindog

No one can possibly believe this family is happy after last night.

Well, this is not entirely true - I believe this family could be happy after last night. There is such a thing as not being consumed by greed. There are families, and there are people, that still have this type of character and perspective.

Just my opinion of course.

.

[calvindog]

Originally Posted by npa589

Well, this is not entirely true - I believe this family could be happy after last night. There is such a thing as not being consumed by greed. There are families, and there are people, that still have this type of character and perspective.

Just my opinion of course.

.

One is not "consumed by greed" if they're led to believe their cards are worth a million bucks and they only see 240K, comeon. You can't possibly blame them for being unhappy about the auction.

[travrosty]

Originally Posted by npa589

Well, this is not entirely true - I believe this family could be happy after last night. There is such a thing as not being consumed by greed. There are families, and there are people, that still have this type of character and perspective.

Just my opinion of course.

.

then they could have just given the cards away then, i would have taken one.


there were 20 members of this family. their cadillac turned into a used hundai.