Hunt Auctions, Huggins & Scott...

[aeneas01]

"So, you do not blame them for leaving the item listed while they investigate your claim and that is your issue? If it was my auction, I would wait to be sure to verify your allegations before pulling the item - Not that you are wrong, but they have to do some homework before pulling a consignors lot - Good or bad."

you obviously made up the part i underlined - they are required to do no such thing.

"I do not know what the difference is from Hunt and Huggins and Scott, so I do not know what the issue is there."

i have no idea what you are talking about.

"I think you should appreciate that you will help a collector not end up with a replica item and not continue to harass the auction house for missing an item."

joel, i've wanted to mention this to you in past but have held off... here's the thing - you are the one that perpetuates and fuels the negative comments leveled towards auction houses and dealers. you. forum members post their thoughts, concerns and warnings when they find issues. you respond to these posts by inviting more discussion, further examples and additional damnation. do you not see this? perhaps you sincerely believe that you are going to bat for some of the auction houses that have been mentioned in the past -but, trust me, you are doing them more harm than good.

"They said they will pull the item and you continue to preach how it should have never got by their authentication process in the first place."

case in point joel - now i'm forced to respond as follows: when an auction lists garbage, doesn't check their work, yet has the audacity to say that the item has undergone "extensive research" all should be forgotten, or they should be praised, if they simply come on this board and say "we'll check it out"? is that what you really think?

"Life goes on, you did a great job and then you continue to state how this should have never passed and you want to punish an auction house for promising to do the right thing."

life does indeed go on and, unfortunately, so do the mistakes auction houses continue to make - it goes on and on. should auction be expected to get it right 100% of the time? of course not - no one that i know would hold them to such a standard. is it unrealistic to expect an experienced sports memorabilia auction house to know the difference between a child's helmet available today at the corner sporting goods store and a circa late 60s vintage, game used pro football helmet? no, i don't think this is unrealistic.

...

[trsent]

"So, you do not blame them for leaving the item listed while they investigate your claim and that is your issue? If it was my auction, I would wait to be sure to verify your allegations before pulling the item - Not that you are wrong, but they have to do some homework before pulling a consignors lot - Good or bad."

you obviously made up the part i underlined - they are required to do no such thing.

"I do not know what the difference is from Hunt and Huggins and Scott, so I do not know what the issue is there."

i have no idea what you are talking about.

"I think you should appreciate that you will help a collector not end up with a replica item and not continue to harass the auction house for missing an item."

joel, i've wanted to mention this to you in past but have held off... here's the thing - you are the one that perpetuates and fuels the negative comments leveled towards auction houses and dealers. you. forum members post their thoughts, concerns and warnings when they find issues. you respond to these posts by inviting more discussion, further examples and additional damnation. do you not see this? perhaps you sincerely believe that you are going to bat for some of the auction houses that have been mentioned in the past -but, trust me, you are doing them more harm than good.

"They said they will pull the item and you continue to preach how it should have never got by their authentication process in the first place."

case in point joel - now i'm forced to respond as follows: when an auction lists garbage, doesn't check their work, yet has the audacity to say that the item has undergone "extensive research" all should be forgotten, or they should be praised, if they simply come on this board and say "we'll check it out"? is that what you really think?

"Life goes on, you did a great job and then you continue to state how this should have never passed and you want to punish an auction house for promising to do the right thing."

life does indeed go on and, unfortunately, so do the mistakes auction houses continue to make - it goes on and on. should auction be expected to get it right 100% of the time? of course not - no one that i know would hold them to such a standard. is it unrealistic to expect an experienced sports memorabilia auction house to know the difference between a child's helmet available today at the corner sporting goods store and a circa late 60s vintage, game used pro football helmet? no, i don't think this is unrealistic.

...

I am sorry you do not like to hear the truth, that auction houses and police officers do make mistakes, and you can pick on my reply, point by point to try to make me look like a fool (I don't, you just didn't re-read your post before reading mine to understand my comments), but at the end of the day they said they will remove the lot if they confirm your findings and that is not good enough for you.

Get over it, you are an expert at some things, they are an expert at others and they made a mistake and for once an auction house came on here and said they would correct it and you still are ripping them.

Why? Am I the bad guy here for telling you to work with them and throw away that box of Kleenex? Say something positive when the auction house says they will work with your comments and findings and don't continue to whine that they made an error they should have never made.

Everyone makes errors, be it judges, cops, art auction houses, gold buyers (I have bought gold that wasn't gold), presidents, lawyers, priests, rabbis, other holy figures, Adam and Eve, John Belushi, Ted Kennedy and I could go on and on...(Warren, a funny photo of this concept would be nice) but you want to rant over how this error should have never happened - Deal with it. Don't buy from them, but they said they would make good and you were still complaining and that is INSANE.

Have a nice day, life is too short to lose sleep over other's errors that do not keep food off your family's table.

[trsent]

case in point joel - now i'm forced to respond as follows: when an auction lists garbage, doesn't check their work, yet has the audacity to say that the item has undergone "extensive research" all should be forgotten, or they should be praised, if they simply come on this board and say "we'll check it out"? is that what you really think?

I forgot to mention, maybe if people stopped assuming that all auction houses are out to commit blatant fraud (I only assume one myself) and understand that they receive consignments that they take at the word of their consignor the item is genuine - Then you would stop rubbing in errors that were already promised to be corrected.

There is a difference between an error and fraud and no one at Hunt, Huggins, Scott or whoever was intentionally trying to commit fraud with this helmet - I'd bet double or nothing on the money I lost on Stanford last night on that prop.

[lund6771]

Robert does a great job helping anyone and everyone when they need help with a helmet question...

Everyone of his posts have substance and I enjoy reading them because I feel educated...Thanks Robert!!!!

At least for myself....I definitely skip over any post that TRsent puts up here because there is never any substance..I got suckered in on this one because I saw Robert was posting and was looking forward to learning something...but there he is rying to instigate again

I hope that you aren't offended in any way by this guy Robert...because if you quit posting, like other knowlegable people have, the forum will be taking 10 Steps back!!!

[RKGIBSON]

Joel,

Come on, this stuff slipped through the cracks. It's not like this is a good replica. This is yard sale stuff that kids play with. Who ever passed this is just not knowledgable enough to be making those decisions on football helmets. Can you admit that. No on brought up fraud but you. You do fuel the fires here with you defending things that have no defense.

I am glad that the auction company reads the forum and actually came here to respond, thank you. I am confident that they will pull the items when the evaluate the information give. I have no problem with them making their own opinion. My original post was meant to say to them, they need someone that knows helmets to clear them for auction. No one can know everything about all kinds of sports items. My guess is the went off the word of the consignor or possibly one of the many worthless LOA's given to junk like this everyday.

Liberals never want anyone to feel blame, cirumstances caused this, right Joel?

Roger

[josh@hugginsandscott.com]

All:

very interesting discussion. All of us at Huggins and Scott appreciate the support that we receive from many of you (Aaron, Joel, etc...). I do apologize for letting the item into the auction in the first place. We try our best to do research on every item that we sell, but to be honest, we are human and we do make mistakes. In this particular case, this helmet was sold to us about a year and half ago in a large deal of other authentic game-used football helmets. A few of the better ones were looked at by an advanced collector and he purchased those, as he liked them. What was left, was sold individually in our October 2007 sale. This Oilers helmet was one of them. The research that was done was to determine the potential players who wore #11 at the time that this helmet would have been used.

We have since pulled the helmet and fully refunded the consignor his money and apologized for any error or inconvenience. I will also offer our apologies to the board, as it is not our intention to deceive anyone or offer "bad" material to the public. We will stand behind any item we sell and we are thankful that people like Robert and others have more knowledge than we do on items like this and can help us sell only quality items through our auction.

If you have any other questions, or concerns, please feel free to email me directly. One of the things that we take great pride in is our customer service. In the future, if someone has an issue with what we are selling, you can email me directly and we can have a discussion about it.

thanks again,
Josh Wulkan
VP of Auction Operations
Huggins and Scott Auctions
www.hugginsandscott.com

[RKGIBSON]

Josh,

Thank you for a honest explanation. Most auction companies never respond to points raised here. Integrity over money will always lend benefits in the future.

Roger

[cjmedina1]

Forum Members

I'm in no way a expert in game used helmets,But I can recognize great customer service.People make mistakes and as long we all learn from our mistakes,We are going to be that much smarter down the road....This is my first time reading about an H&S auction item having a problem........I think they've handled it in a timely,professional matter.To top it all off The V.P of Operations Josh Wulkan came on this message board and gave us an explanation on how they got the item and the result of the findings in this thread,Now having the auction lot pulled.For H&S to come on here admit they made a mistake,It says alot and I tip my hat to them,I cant say that about other auction houses.

On a personal note I've won 2 items in different auctions from H&S and I'm very impressed with their customer service....So Josh tell your team to keep up the good work and I cant wait until you get some more high end Mcgwire bats

Carlie Medina III
carliemedinaiii@sbcglobal.net

[trsent]

Robert does a great job helping anyone and everyone when they need help with a helmet question...

Everyone of his posts have substance and I enjoy reading them because I feel educated...Thanks Robert!!!!

At least for myself....I definitely skip over any post that TRsent puts up here because there is never any substance..I got suckered in on this one because I saw Robert was posting and was looking forward to learning something...but there he is rying to instigate again

I hope that you aren't offended in any way by this guy Robert...because if you quit posting, like other knowlegable people have, the forum will be taking 10 Steps back!!!

I do not mind Robert's posts until the auction house comes on the forum, says they will look into the issue and Robert still complains how they could have made the error in the first place.

Now Huggins and Scott has given a full explanation and pulled the lot.

We have an auction house that replies to us on the forum and Robert didn't want to accept they made an error, he wants them to still be punished after admitting they would investigate the error.

Pete Peschel, I do not know what your issue is with me, but I have not seen or talked to you in over 15 years. If you have anything you wish to discuss, my email address is listed in every post I make on Game Used Universe and I will gladly correspond with you if you have anything you would like to work out. If you do not wish to read my posts, click on my used name above and there is a button you can click to block my posts.

Again, I do not mind the research Robert has done, I find it amazing. I mind that after the auction house comes on here and comments, they still received a hard time for doing what was right. Errors happen, a lack of understanding is an issue.

[commando]

First off, let me say that my post is not targeted at Huggins & Scott in any way, but to sports auction houses in general. There is no doubt in my mind that Huggins & Scott is an honest, reputable establishment that has excellent communication, as we have seen in this thread. I wholeheartedly think that the helmet in question here was listed in error (which I'll give my humble opinion on below).

We all understand that the competent authentication of vintage memorabilia is important because of an obvious reason -- big money is at stake. Hungry collectors seem quite happy to spend big bucks on scarce jersey and helmet styles (which the 1966-71 Houston Oilers helmet style certainly qualifies. I can't remember the last time I saw one available). As far as the present debate between trsent (Joel) and aeneas01 (Robert), I believe both of you bring up good points. My humble opinion resembles that of Robert's more closely, and here's why:

It's true that everyone makes mistakes in life and at their jobs... But I believe there are different levels of mistakes, and we all know there are different levels of consequences. For example, sticking with the police officer theme, let's say that an officer issues a ticket to someone for "jaywalking" across a street, and it later turns out the pedestrian hadn't broken any laws. A judge can find the person "not guilty" and life goes on. But what if the officer believes he sees someone jaywalking, throws them to the ground, cuffs them, puts them in the back of a patrol car, and brings them to jail? Not only would the officer lose their job, but they would probably lose their house too after the civil suit.

Keep in mind that a police officer has been thoroughly trained, both in an academy and with training officers on the street, so this kind of example rarely happens.

What I'm trying to say is that there are definitely different "levels" of mistakes, as others have pointed out. It is not enough to just say that everyone makes them... You need to consider the severity of the mistake versus the supposed qualifications of the expert. When an auction house states, "...we strive not only to have the best in the business authenticating our memorabilia, but also to have the most experience possible in our team of authenticators to always ensure our customers satisfaction" (once again, this is not talking about Huggins & Scott), what are they stating? Hopefully, this means a simple Getty Images search won't make them look like fools.

Debate is a good thing. Mudslinging is not. The vast majority of us want to be a part of a fun, clean hobby. Maybe we have differing opinions on what "mudslinging" actually means. But i think we all realize that knowledge is key in this hobby, and threads in this forum have given me lots of it.