Not defending Koos or the Mantle, but-

[Archive]

Posted By: Bruce Moreland

"Even if he's trying to assess what the card would sell for given it's in a PRO holder, the results of that experiment are faulty. If you were buying the card and heard later that the seller said it was garbage and anyone who bought it was an unsuspecting dolt, would you be satisfied?"

Since this would be a true statement, I wouldn't be that upset. All PRO cards have something wrong with them, it's axiomatic. Anyone who buys one is bottom fishing in a lake full of mercury and PCB's. Has anyone here ever bought a PRO card? Drop me an email and tell me so, and I'll call you a dolt. I'd do this as a favor to you, in order to give you some incentive not to ever to this again.

"And this 'well, maybe he won't allow the sale to be completed' is crap, too. I don't care who the seller is- if you put something out there on E-bay, I think you should have to stick to it and sell it (unless you make a mistake like putting a reserve price down as a buy it now price)."

I don't think there is a maybe here. For all I know, Dr. Koos is Satan's younger brother, but he has a blank slate with me. I don't have preconceived notions about the guy, so when I saw him go on about how it was evil to sell this card without any indication it was altered, and then I saw him auctioning the card with no reference to its being altered, rather than assuming that he was Satan's younger brother, I assumed that the reserve was infinity. His subsequent comments here have confirmed that assumption. If it says "reserve met" for any amount other than infinity, I'll join you in calling him a hypocrite.

It's a test auction. I don't know why he's running it. It's not my business. I hope he gets the data he's trying to get. I hope that the people who read these words have enough maturity that they don't intentionally screw it up.

Regarding this messing up anyone's buying plans because they need to have vast wads of cash ready to pay for this, they are all bidding on something in a PRO slab, which is STUPID, so anything that screws up this person's collecting experience without actually parting them from their money is probably a good thing. I'd rather have them tie up their money trying to win a bogus card that's not really for sale than have them actually win any number of bogus PRO cards that are for sale.

This is much better than getting an email from someone who has read my professional grading page, and they tell me they've spent $2,000 on PRO stuff, and ask me if I think they got burned. This happens. It is totally not fun.

For all we know, he's going to send email to all of his bidders, calling them dolts, educating them about how badly PRO bites.

The sins being committed here by Dr. Koos are minimal. Worse sins are committed hourly on used car lots all across America. Worse sins are committed innumerable times every day on eBay. Everyone who sends me an EXMT card with a wrinkle is doing worse than this.

Dr. Koos has a bunch of people following him around, all waving those little bats that they give out on "bat night" at baseball games. For all I know, he deserves to be followed around by this crowd, but I don't see that the crowd has much real reason to be enraged about this particular auction.

bruce