If I Were An Authenticator...

[kingjammy24]

here's what i'd do..

i'd rack up the auction house contracts. there's really not all that much money, relatively speaking, in just authenticating items though. i'd use the auctions to internally suss out items i personally liked and could flip. flipping's where the real money is. once i identified those items, i'd grade them low and/or mis-describe them so as to result in an artificially low price. i'd win the items, at the artificially low price, with help from my auction house pals. after all, bidding records are never made public so who's gonna know that i "won" an item, much less that i "won" it for less than the highest bidder. then i'd flip these items elsewhere by increasing the grade on them and pocket the profit. of course my auction house pals wouldn't be happy about the lower commissions from the lower hammer prices on these items. so in turn, i'd jack up the grades on items they personally submitted into the auction. 9.5! stupendous example! their items would then fetch substantially more and put more money in their personal pockets so that would make up for the items i was getting on the cheap and flipping. i'd also help out with the auction..change a facemask, add a decal, look the other way on bad items, whatever was needed to keep everyone fat and happy. in turn, they'd keep me stuffed full of contracts and i could keep buying items on the cheap and flipping them elsewhere for more. if some internet forum pops up and starts meddling, i'll tell the auction house to ban them or ignore them. i hate internet forums. they impede the gravy train. life was better before them, when collectors would pay more for a 10 than a 5 and i was the guy who made the call as to what as a 10 and what was a 5 and could profit by gaming the system for my pals. just to keep a low profile, i wouldn't want to be personally identified on any particular item. just let the auction house say i'm part of some team so collectors have no clue who's examining what.

pretty revolutionary huh.

rudy.

[suave1477]

Rudy your real name wouldnt happen to be Lou would it????:eek:

[lund6771]

Rudy...

are you just day dreaming or do you got a good story to tell

[Vintagedeputy]

If I Were Lou Lampson (The Lampson Song)

If I were Lou Lampson
I'd authenticate in the morning
I'd authenticate in the evening
All over this land
I'd authenticate forgerys
I'd authenticate fake jerseys
I'd authenticate things that were never really game worn
All over this land

If I had a COA
I'd sign it in the morning
I'd sign it in the evening
All with my own hand
I'd sign my own name
To just about anything
I'd authenticate anything as long as the money's green
All over this land

If I had 8000 photos
I'd authenticate in the morning
I'd authenticate in the evening
All over this land
I'd claim its authentic
I'd claim that its genuine
I'd authenticate anything without any proof
All over this land

Well I've got no conscience
And I've got no photos
To prove what I say is really game used
Its all slight of hand
It's done with smoke and mirrors
It's the sound of greed
It's the song about love between auction houses and me
All over this land

[ndevlin]

Haha, oh man, I cant believe you actually put that.

[Eric]

Rudy-

That's the world our hobby lives in. And people wonder why the collectors are hypersensitive to being cheated.

Your scenario enables the following situation of checks and balances
(No, it's not that we write the checks and their account balances increase)

After you write letters on those items, should questions be brought up about your findings, the auction house to deflect with a standard "Well the authenticator said it was good." They don't have to provide any additional info.

Then even if the buyer gets really shows that the item was not as described, they point to "All Sales Final" and say you shouldn't bid if you aren't comfortable with the authenticator. But they're comfortable with the authenticator and stand behind all of their items, but all sales are final, but they stand behind their items, but all sales are final, but the authenticator says it's good, but they stand behind their items, and all sales are final.

And many of them end up selling the scoreboard shirts as game used, or the helmets with the wrong facemask, or the jersey with the improper tagging anyway.

[both-teams-played-hard]

If I Were Lou Lampson (The Lampson Song)

If I were Lou Lampson
I'd authenticate in the morning
I'd authenticate in the evening
All over this land
I'd authenticate forgerys
I'd authenticate fake jerseys
I'd authenticate things that were never really game worn
All over this land

If I had a COA
I'd sign it in the morning
I'd sign it in the evening
All with my own hand
I'd sign my own name
To just about anything
I'd authenticate anything as long as the money's green
All over this land

If I had 8000 photos
I'd authenticate in the morning
I'd authenticate in the evening
All over this land
I'd claim its authentic
I'd claim that its genuine
I'd authenticate anything without any proof
All over this land

Well I've got no conscience
And I've got no photos
To prove what I say is really game used
Its all slight of hand
It's done with smoke and mirrors
It's the sound of greed
It's the song about love between auction houses and me
All over this land

Pete Seeger reference on the forum? Who knew? This post would have worked nicely with the "Hammer" thread, a few months back. Nice.

[aeneas01]

i'd use the auctions to internally suss out items i personally liked and could flip. flipping's where the real money is. once i identified those items, i'd grade them low and/or mis-describe them so as to result in an artificially low price. i'd win the items, at the artificially low price, with help from my auction house pals. after all, bidding records are never made public so who's gonna know that i "won" an item, much less that i "won" it for less than the highest bidder. then i'd flip these items elsewhere by increasing the grade on them and pocket the profit.

for this scheme to work a consignor would a) have to swallow the low grade or not even notice it and b) steer clear of future auctions, no? seems a little risky, even for the most daring.

of course my auction house pals wouldn't be happy about the lower commissions from the lower hammer prices on these items. so in turn, i'd jack up the grades on items they personally submitted into the auction. 9.5! stupendous example! their items would then fetch substantially more and put more money in their personal pockets so that would make up for the items i was getting on the cheap and flipping.

why would a crooked auction house agree to such terms? heck i would think they would simply say "hey, if you want us to keep throwing biz your way you will grade everything high - we make money on the hammer price, you make money on the contract, got it? and if you try to screw us we'll make sure you go home in a pair of cement shoes."

[aeneas01]

speaking of authenticators, according to nerat's blog he will be at the pcce - lampson and bushing will also be in attendance. looking forward to a gavel chat piece on the unfair treatment of today's authenticators thanks to modern technology....

[cohibasmoker]

speaking of authenticators, according to nerat's blog he will be at the pcce - lampson and bushing will also be in attendance. looking forward to a gavel chat piece on the unfair treatment of today's authenticators thanks to modern technology....

PERFECT

[Vintagedeputy]

Pete Seeger reference on the forum? Who knew? This post would have worked nicely with the "Hammer" thread, a few months back. Nice.

I just saw a special about Pete Seeger. He was an icon in his day.

[kingjammy24]

"for this scheme to work a consignor would a) have to swallow the low grade or not even notice it and b) steer clear of future auctions, no? seems a little risky, even for the most daring."

hardly. consigners know their items are at the grading mercy of the authenticator. in any large average auction, can you imagine how many consigners there are who are of the opinion that their items should've graded higher? swallowing low grades is an accepted part of the hobby. everyone knows that, even in an ideal and perfectly ethical setting, grading is subjective. what bushing feels is a 9 may receive an 8 by taube maybe receive an 8.5 from specht. in a less than ethical setting, individuals can intentionally manipulate these grading differences to their advantage and profit. "moderate use" becomes "light use". woops there goes a point. good luck arguing with the auction house and/or authenticator over their definition of "moderate use", especially when the authenticator apparently has no phone number, no email, and no way of being contacted. consigners swallow low grades all the time and shrug it off. the card forums are filled with stories of how the major card authenticators give higher grades to lucrative regular clients than to the little fish.

as well, they wouldn't have to steer clear of future auctions either as the items aren't necessarily flipped in other auctions. they're flipped to private clients and other collectors. even if they're flipped to another auction it wouldn't matter. let me illustrate. robert, let's say you consign a helmet to auction house A. we'll call them Castro. well, someone on Castro's authentication team thinks they could privately flip your helmet for a pretty petty. he gives it an 8 and writes a really lackluster description. a real ho-hum 3 liner. trust me, many collectors have been frustrated at how poorly their items have been presented. again, it's nothing new. so you pop your top and call the auction house and say "an 8?! that thing's a 10!". their response? "sorry but we're going with our authenticator". you either have the option of withdrawing the helmet or leaving it in. many shrug it off and leave it in. predictably your item fetches a low price and you're pissed. "sorry but that's the auction process!" they tell you. again, i've seen many collectors shocked and miffed over their items going for an abnormally low price. i've seen identical items fetch wildly different prices at different times. i bought a fred mcgriff bat at an auction for somewhere around $200 i think. it was the exact same bat that sold previously in another auction for over $1000. somewhere, someone lost some money and they had no recourse.

so Castro's authenticator, who graded your item low and wrote a poor description, won your item. he knows it's really a 10. either he then flips it to a private client or puts it in another auction. the thing is, you don't know who actually gave your helmet the 8 because he isn't directly identified. he's just part of "the Castro team". Castro refuses not only to identify who they use but furthermore refuses to identify who exactly authenticated each item. it does a wonderful job of protecting the authenticator. so then the authenticator flips it to another auction house, let's call them BMI, and gives it a 10 and writes an amazing description. woah you say! hang on! that's my helmet! so you ring them up and ask how it could've gotten a 10! their answer, predictably, is "we can't explain how another auction house graded your helmet. we don't know why they gave it an 8. we feel it's a 10. we're also sorry that their auction writers aren't as good as ours. sorry, we're going with our authenticator". all of that is assuming it's flipped to a future auction. it may well be flipped to a private collector. many collectors don't keep immaculate auction records with photos of each item ever sold. truth be told, i don't even remember 98% of what was sold in GFC's last auction for example. several months later, everyone's forgotten and the authenticator is free to flip the item he picked up on the cheap.

"why would a crooked auction house agree to such terms? heck i would think they would simply say "hey, if you want us to keep throwing biz your way you will grade everything high - we make money on the hammer price, you make money on the contract, got it? and if you try to screw us we'll make sure you go home in a pair of cement shoes."

you feel that threatening the authenticator into a contract that overwhelmingly favors the auction house is the best long-term scenario?
in a given auction, the 30-40% premiums collected by the auction house completely blow whatever the authenticator was paid out of the water. authenticators know what's going on and many aren't stupid enough to play along in a game where they're getting financially screwed over while the auction house makes a ton. they'll take their business elsewhere. as for the cement shoes, i really doubt most of them are so depraved as to actually go through with what you suggest.

as opposed to a more mutually beneficial solution where the authenticator is allowed to cherrypick items he can later flip personally, and thus is happy, and the auction house receives his help in "fixing" items and pumping up the grades on their personal consignments and thus they're happy.

heavy-handed negotiations only work in the movies. when one side of the table leaves feeling pissed and cheated, you can be certain it won't be a successful relationship for long. there are only so many "big name" authenticators who'll go along with all manner of shenanigans. when you find one, you want to make sure you have a peaceful, successful, enjoyable relationship for a long time.

rudy.

[Danny899]

Let's beat the Lampson dead horse again.

[Eric]

It's not a dead horse until someone does something about it.

[aeneas01]

heavy-handed negotiations only work in the movies...

exactly rudy, which is why i posted what i did - are you saying your post was serious, that it wasn't an exaggerated parody?

you really believe that auction houses and their authenticators regularly conspire to commit fraud by assigning low grades to their customers' items in order to flip them with a higher grade and at a higher price down the road? that this practice is commonplace and would be next to impossible for the collecting public to detect?

[kingjammy24]

you really believe that auction houses and their authenticators regularly conspire to commit fraud by assigning low grades to their customers' items in order to flip them with a higher grade and at a higher price down the road? that this practice is commonplace and would be next to impossible for the collecting public to detect?

robert,

i'm afraid we've become entangled in a confusing web of sarcasm. i can't tell if you're asking that seriously or not.

rudy.

[aeneas01]

robert,

i'm afraid we've become entangled in a confusing web of sarcasm. i can't tell if you're asking that seriously or not.

rudy.

no sarcasm intended - are those really your feelings?

i mean i certainly get what you're saying rudy, there's no doubt that auction houses and authenticators operate in an environment that seemingly provides unlimited opportunity for unethical exploitation. i just find it hard to believe that conspiring to manipulate grades for the sole purpose of flipping items is as commonplace and as overt as your suggest. or that such a scheme would be difficult to detect. again, i thought your first post was an intentional exaggeration designed to illustrate your point - that the authentication game was ripe for abuse.