Mastro Auction Descriptions

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Posted By: Doug Allen

Hey Guys,

I have read with interest many of your comments about our write-ups. Additionally, a good customer of ours provided some very credible feedback of certain lots where the write-ups in his estimation crossed the line. I don't choose to debate it here but I would like ot offer some comments.

First, it is important to note that when these comments were brought to my attention earlier this year much of the June Classic was pretty much put to bed so any reaction would not show in full force until this summer.

Second, this body in in the minority. Many of our customers who admittedly are not as advanced in their knowledge as the collectors on this formum love the detailed historical write-ups. A number have even indicated it is what draws them to the auctions and makes them take things to the next level. You guys are great customers whom I value but you do not represent a majority of the spend in this great hobby of ours. It is my job to ascertain the needs of all our customers when deciding how to produce catalogs. If it was just you guys it would save us a ton of money as a large image and short desciption would suffice.

Third, we have listened. I agree that when detailed even flamboyant write-ups cloud condition descriptions that is problematic. It is not appropriate to let the positive attributes of a particular lot cloud specific problems with cards that need to be disclosed. Case in point "vintage remnants of album removal" is "back damage" no matter how you slice it.

In short we will still differenctiate ourselves with supperior artistic design, images and historical write-ups when assembling our event catalogs...on the other hand we will work diligently to ensure that is seperate and destinct from describing the condition of individual cards and card lots.

Hope this helps clarify our position.

All the best,
Doug

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Posted By: rand

Hi Doug, always great to hear from you. I agree with both sides of this topic. I think the descriptions are just to long and have to much fluff in them. I think both sides can be serviced with less verbage. I will be sending you money soon, as the next auction is around the corner.

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Posted By: barrysloate

Hi Doug- We all agree the detailed historic information is crucial and in no way would anybody suggest you take that out, regardless how long the text might be.

But the sentences could be made a lot easier to read and everybody would be well served, both Mastro Auctions and the customers who enjoy studying the catalogs.

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Posted By: Jeff Lichtman

Can someone interpret what Doug said for me? It was written much like the Mastro auction descriptions.

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Posted By: Doug Allen

That was good Jeff!

I will type slower this time :->

On one hand the descriptions in many cases will be long and detailed as we believe that is what the majority of our customers have come to appreaciate and expect......

On the other hand will work hard to keep the condition composites/descriptions clear and concise....not clouded by the flamboyant descriptions of why buying our lots are akin to solving world hunger.

Hope that helps.

Doug

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

I tend to like the long descriptions on lots that I am interested in - which are usually few and far between since I am mainly interested in specific photos and memorabilia....the more info the better.

But how much of a description do you need for a 1914 cracker jack card? I suppose that's where all the flowery fluff is not needed nor appreciated.

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Posted By: Jeff Lichtman

Thanks, Doug. After all, I'm not as intelligent or as educated as you are.

Perhaps instead of discussing your puffery you could simply focus on accurately describing the cards you are selling and accurately indicating the alterations (excuse me, "preparation") you've done on them (or have been done on the cards prior to getting to you). In addition, real damage to the cards should be disclosed instead of downplaying it in order that the bids will be higher. I've noticed that any failure to accurately describe card damage has been in downplaying, rather than overplaying, the damage. Must just be a coincidence.

Somehow I suspect these issues are more important to the Network 54 group than the used car salesman language that is often used in Mastro auctions.

Oh and before I forget --

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Posted By: Bottom of the Ninth

Hi Doug,

I am more of a picture guy. I never was the person who said I got Playboy for the articles. I digress, sorry. Rather than altering what many or some call flamboyant descriptions, I would love to see more pictures of cards from lots as well as larger images. Absent my coming out to Chicago to preview each auction I am generally bidding based on limited scans and fairly small ones at that. In many instances it has prevented me from bidding higher.

Thanks for listening.

Best,

Greg

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Posted By: MVSNYC

i agree...as amazing as the Mastro Catalogs are, i would like to see less verbage and larger/more images of certain lots. all the fluffy romance, i can do without, let's just get down to brass.

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Posted By: barrysloate

I think it's important to distinguish between a great historical artifact and a Pete Rose rookie.

The artifact needs all the information you can provide for it; bidders expect that.

But with a 1963 Pete Rose, there is actually a law that says you are permitted to be succinct.

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Posted By: Frank Evanov

A picture is worth a thousand words.

Frank

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Posted By: leon

Doug, I think what you are describing is hopefully the best of both worlds for folks. I like both the detailed descriptions and "some" of the puffery. If you are saying that ya'll are looking at having the long winded (and many times entertaining) write up about the history of the lot and the importance it has in the hobby and then the next paragraph is a detailed, extremely accurate description of the faults of the condition of the card/lot, then everyone should be happy. Also for expensive lots or premium lots the front/ back scans need to be there and very large.....just my 2 cents....and btw, I fully understand you will never, ever make everyone happy. good luck and thanks for coming on and giving your view of a much discussed situation...Almost NO large auction house principals would do that.....regards

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Posted By: MVSNYC

obviously i would want to hear more on the history, condition and provenance of a Lou Gehrig Jersey and less about how the corners of a PSA 9 Ted Williams could cut steak...

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Posted By: barrysloate

Cut steak...it's time for another NYC Dinner Thread. I'm up for steak.

You see how threads naturally digress?

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Posted By: DMcD

Well, I am just a T-bone kinda guy. Love that T-bone.

Now back to our regularly scheduled topic . .
What Leon said.

edited to undigress

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Posted By: MVSNYC

barry, i was trying to get another NYC Dinner on the books, anyway...would actually be cool if you could join us, Doug...will you be in NYC anytime soon?

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Posted By: Jeff Lichtman

Last night I went to Masa in the Time Warner building for my anniversary. Best meal that I've ever had in America, a once in a lifetime opportunity. Now how about we have the NYC Dinner Thread Dinner III there? Otherwise, Peter Lugers or Mortons?

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Posted By: MVSNYC

i heard masa is good...i wouldn't mind spending some coin on a nice meal...

although, i have not been to Luger's yet. we can discuss offline, don't want to side-track Doug's thread too much.

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Posted By: Dan Koteles

a must have for home made "TAMALES". Who needs New yuk ?

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Posted By: JimB

It seems to me there are three types of information in Mastro descriptions: the puffery, the historical info, and the condition info. Obviously the latter two are the most important, but the first has never really bothered me so much. Sometimes I even find it amusing, though it is not what guides my bidding decisions. REA tends to focus on the historical info (and condition) and I generally find their catalogs to be more informative. I have not compared, but it seems like there used to be more of the historical information in your catalogs than there has been in recent years.
JimB

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Posted By: barrysloate

Luger's would be great but you need a reservation a month in advance and I read that the price of beef will be skyrocketing. I never heard of Masa but I vote for something inexpensive and below 42nd Street (even my Brooklyn neighborhood is loaded with great places).

Okay, I don't want to continue off topic. I'm done for now.

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Posted By: MVSNYC

one more O/T post...

jeff- have you been down to the Waverly Inn yet in the west village? what a scene, good luck getting a table.

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Posted By: jay behrens

A step in the right direction. Now if you will start listing the "clean up" and "improvements" that have been done to a lot. Double checking basic info on cards would be a good thing too. The whole m101-5 Thorpe situation is inexcusable for a major auction house and makes you look like a bunch of eBay hacks.

Jay

I love pinatas. You get to beat the crap of something and get rewarded with candy.

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Posted By: Dan Kravitz

I would like for Mastro to spend as much time describing the faults of the card as they do the puffing the positives. I want to know about creases, paperloss, wrinkles, markings, etc. When I buy a $10,000.00 card, it really is the only thing I am concerned about. I can see the edges and the color in the scan, but I may not be able to see creases and markings. The Wagner Mother's Bread is a great example of Mastro overlooking the problems with a card. They did go back and change the description, but only after someone brought it to their attention. Anyone who looked at the card could tell it had a crease through the middle and the card. I beleive that if you are going to list the positives you should list the negatives, or don't say anything at all and let the grade of the card speak for itself, otherwise it's a used car salesman pitch. I want honesty! Is that asking too much?

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Posted By: Doug Allen

Hey Jeff,

First of all I doubt if I am as educated or as intelligent as you....two cases in point #1 I sell baseball cards for a living and #2 I have no idea how you do those nice smiley faces...I still go with three key strokes :-> (is it that insert object button?).

Regarding your comments.....let me break down my responses to each of your phrases:

"Perhaps instead of discussing your puffery" - They are mutually exclusive...I can still "market" the cards as long as I describe them properly

"you could simply focus on accurately describing the cards you are selling and accurately indicating the alterations (excuse me, "preparation") you've done on them (or have been done on the cards prior to getting to you)." - I agree completely. We will accurately describe the cards we sell and detail any alterations that we have knowledge of. I actually believe we do that today as evidenced by the fact that we have minimal card grading complaints or returns.

"In addition, real damage to the cards should be disclosed instead of downplaying it in order that the bids will be higher. I've noticed that any failure to accurately describe card damage has been in downplaying, rather than overplaying, the damage. Must just be a coincidence. " - I agree we have at times fallen short on this point. We are making real changes in our process to avoid this in the future.

I hope this is responsive to your questions.

All the best,
Doug

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Posted By: David Vargha

How about accurate set descriptions such as, "We have cherry-picked the best cards and have submitted them to PSA for grading. The rest are not representative of what you see slabbed here. In fact, a couple of the raw ones may have been rejected by PSA on our submission, but look near mint"?

DavidVargha@hotmail.com

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Posted By: Peter Spaeth

Doug, when you say you will completely disclose any alterations, I think to be clear you may wish to define your terms because what some consider alterations many don't. For example, is pressing down a corner an alteration? Taking out a surface wrinkle? Not to open a can o' worms but people do want to know, I think.

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Posted By: jay behrens

Peter, excellent point. Previous posts by Doug have shown that some things that Mastro doesn't consider alterations, other do and this is something certainly needs to be made perfectly clear so that there is no misunderstanding.

Jay

I love pinatas. You get to beat the crap of something and get rewarded with candy.

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Posted By: Frank Evanov

"We will accurately describe the cards we sell and detail any alterations that we have knowledge of."

I echo Peter's question: will you detail corner pressing and erasing?

Frank

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Posted By: Jeff Lichtman

Doug, thanks for responding.

And Peter is correct: disclosing alterations is well and good as long as Mastro's defintion of 'alteration' is the same as the rest of ours. And while some of us may tend to disagree on whether, say, an erasure of a stray pencil mark is considered alteration, why not just disclose everything and let the bidder decide? The failure to fully disclose all of this information clearly is designed to increase bids under, in my mind, false pretense. Considering the size of Mastro's business and the fact that it has no real competitor, what could possibly be your problem with full disclosure?

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Posted By: Peter Spaeth

This is an excerpt from a prior post by Doug; I have cut and paste with no changes his full response to a question concerning "acceptable" practices. I don't know if this list is coextensive with the way Doug defines what are "alterations" and what are not for purposes of disclosure.

"3)What will Mastronet and its employees do (if anything) to improve the condition of cards that are consigned to it? Please adress the following

Let me first react to the general question. Mastro Auctions will take raw cards and prepare them to grade. In my mind what this includes are practices that are accepted by grading services suck as laying down corners that may have "flipped" during handling, removing wax residue from the surface of a card and pressing out a light wrinkle that does not break the surface of the card.

Here are my reactions to the following processes....

--cleaning card--such as taking glue off

I have no problem with removing paste that remains from album removal especialy vintage paste that rarely damages the surface of the card.

--taking out creases

I have no problem with taking out light creases or surface wrinkles that do not break the surface.

--erasing pencil marks

I have no problem erasing "light" pencil marks. I believe dark ones impact the surface of the cards and therefore are better off left alone.

--pressing cards

This needs to be defined. I have no problem laying down corners or "flips" caused by handling.

--trimming

I am totally against trimming cards

--bleachoing/recoloring

I am totally against bleaching/recoloring cards"

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Posted By: Doug Allen

I am not going to get into this dialogue again. Many asked me if I regreted my previous posts...not at all. They led to numerous conversations collectors as well as with Joe Orlando and Dave Forman. As a culmination of all of this I will restate my position. Mastro Auctions will disclose any and all alterations to cards that we sell. If we are unable to detect an alteration and it is detected later we will issue a full refund.

Sincerely,
Doug Allen
President
Mastro Auctions

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Posted By: Jeff Lichtman

So, I suppose we are to assume that Mastro's policy on this issue has not changed.

Thanks for clearing that up.

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Posted By: Adam

I don't get what all the fuss is. If someone does not like how Mastro Auctions does business, just don't bid on any of their items. It's as simple as that. Just give your money to some other auction house.

While I respect the opinions everyone has, I at least like Mastro. I am confident in my abilities (as well as the abilities of other board members) to extract what is truly important from any "extensive descriptions" they may provide, and I will continue to bid on Mastro items of interest.

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Posted By: rand

Jeff, your tone is more than sarcastic, why dont you get JP or a Memory Lane rep here to discuss cards. No company is going to please everyone, its not the point, at least there is dialogue, i was pissed at the 20% and 10% bid increments because it severly lowered my chances of winning some cards, but at least we can have direct converstaion with Doug. I am sure if your work was published on the internet we would find a few flaws with you to.

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Posted By: Doug Allen

Jeff,

I never said my opinion didn't change. Not at all. What I did say is I am committed to communicating all known or detected alterations to cards.

You are a good customer and you can rest assured when you bid in my auctions that we will do our best to disclose everything we know regarding card alterations. Once you win something if you were to find we missed something (which can happen since we handle so many cards) I will step up and buy the card back.

What more can one ask for than that?

All the best,
Doug

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Posted By: Jeff Lichtman

First off, JP Cohen is a fraudster and we've already seen the sort of crap he pulls in auctions. Doug knows I don't feel that way about Mastro; I simply want Mastro to be more open and a better auction house.

Second, that Doug comes out here and provides his position is wonderful -- except when the position he provides is less than what either myself or many others hoped for. All I want to know is what sort of 'alteration' is Mastro willing to disclose? Understand this: I am not saying that I think that all of Mastro's 'preparation' of cards for auction is wrong; I simply want to know if something, anything, has been done to the cards, period.

And Rand, you're right: it must be tough for, say, the national media to pick apart every word that comes out of your mouth in a high-pressure situation. Can't imagine how tough that must be.

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Posted By: Bruce Perry

now if they could only spell!!!!!!!!!!!!...........the mastro catalog descriptions are usually excellent and quite interesting, and the majority of people "get it"....I do not think it is mastro auctions job to baby the uninformed collector...they can email or call mastro auctions and get a more thorough description or explanation......the catalogs are getting thicker and heavier as it is, with what seems to be an increasing number of lots...and the fed ex trucks are having quite a time transporting them

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Posted By: jay behrens

Think about what you just said. It would take then more time to answer questions if they left out pertinent info than if they included it from the get go. Besides, I think there are certain things they have to cover in the description in order to protect themselves legally.

Jay

I love pinatas. You get to beat the crap of something and get rewarded with candy.

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Posted By: Jeff Lichtman

So I guess it would be babying the uninformed bidder to disclose a major restoration job on a Keeler cabinet (without getting the ok from the consignor or charging him for the work done) before attempting to pass it off as minimal restoration work? If that's babying, pass me the pacifier....

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Posted By: Peter Spaeth

Take your pick.

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Posted By: Jeff Lichtman

I'm partial to blue.

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Posted By: leon

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Posted By: JimCrandell

"You can rest assured when you bid in my auctions that we will do our best to disclose everything we know regarding card alteration"--Doug Allen

Even when its you that is doing the altering????"

Funny Doug--I read the Mastronet catalogues yet I cannot remember once reading the statement--"we took a crease out of this card" yet you admit openly that you do this.

Which is it?

Jim

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Posted By: barrysloate

Hey Jim- welcome back. How are things going?

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Posted By: Peter Spaeth

Good to see you. It's a definitional thing I think -- Doug has posted that he doesn't think taking out a light crease that does not break the surface is an "alteration," thus no need to disclose it. As I recall when this subject was last discussed in depth, Doug had expressed the view that he thought the grading companies more or less shared the views expressed in the portion of the post I cut and pasted yesterday, and he indicated he would follow up with them, but I don't recall that we ever heard back from PSA.

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Posted By: Jeff Lichtman

Jim, I'm sure Doug would say that this is Mastro's new new new policy going forward. I hadn't seen any mention of their card alterations in the online preview of the June Collector's auction. Maybe the new policy will kick in for the August auction. Or the 08 auctions. Or the later ones. Or the ones after that.

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Posted By: JimCrandell

Hey Barry,

I am doing very well thanks--son graduates from college next week and my daughter from high school the week after that. Life is great. How are you?

I was alerted by a hobby friend to what Doug was saying. Everyone is entitled to their opinions but I consider it the ultimate in hypocracy to first admit that you take creases out of cards and then say you will disclose all alterations with a straight face. I am still madly searching through my catalogues looking for where Mastronet says this was a psa 4 but we broke it out of the case, took the crease out, and now it is a psa 8--

Jim

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Posted By: Peter Spaeth

I assume you are being facetious but to be fair, at least Doug is being consistent -- he has stated his views on what they regard as alterations and what they regard as simply "preparation" that presumably does not need to be disclosed. Now some of us may disagree with the definitions, but at least we know what MIGHT have happened to any card we are considering buying. With others you don't even know that -- except perhaps with REA that says they don't do ANYTHING to prepare cards for submission.

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Posted By: JimCrandell

Peter and Jeff,

Okay--here is an example.

I have a 48 Leaf Joe DiMaggio psa 4 that in my opinion is a psa 9 except that it has a very small surface crease in the picture of the card. I have been told by a leading national dealer that there is little question that Mastronet could take the crease out of the card and it his opinion that the card would grade a psa 9 and at worse an 8.

So if I gave this card to Mastronet and asked them to take out the wrinkle, regrade it, have a nice conversation with Reza, and put it in there latest auction do you really think Mastronet would disclose the history of this card.

I would add that I would consider it unethical to do what I described and what Doug Allen has already admitted to.

Jim