Is MEARS Really A "Research Center"?

[aeneas01]

I suspect they used the info I gave them, but I can't say for certain.

People like free stuff. Who can blame them.

Years ago a fellow forwarded an email to me he'd received from TNT Network. The 76ers were playing the Hawks and TNT wanted some pics of Dr. J. with the Hawks. The game was on that evening. I emailed him some scans and gave him all the photo credit info I could find in the publications. He said it was too late to get the proper clearance to use those photos. Of course, all the scans I sent him ended up being shown during the telecast.
I watched the credits roll just for fun...didn't see any names I recognized.

has mears responded to any of your emails? even a "yeah, we already knew that" sort of thing? by my count you've sent mears at least three emails? i thought mears was supposed to be the auction house all auction houses aspired to be - transparency, prompt replies to inquiries, etc., etc.

btw i can relate to your tnt story. in my past life i was a bean counter, a number cruncher. i worked with spreadsheets every day of my life for 15+ years - budgets, forecasts, p&l statements, statistical analysis, etc. anyway i've always enjoyed numbers and really used to dig playing around with nfl stats.

in 1999 the rams, my team, lit up the league. towards the end of the '99 season i decided to run some numbers using their stats and their turnovers jumped out at me. the only time they lost was when they were -2 or greater in turnovers. i then proceeded to look at every game played by every team, dating back to 1995, and discovered that turnovers were a huge factor. i compiled this info and emailed it to the sporting news. their head sports writer immediately responded that he was putting a piece together for the playoffs and would like to include my info - he would give me credit. he kept emailing about this and that asking if i could, for example, isolate just the playoff teams. i enjoyed this stuff and said sure. then the playoffs started.

while watching the first playoff game that year, a graphic popped up after one of the teams coughed up the ball: a teams' chance of winning when -1 in turnovers is 30%. as the game progressed the station continued to use these graphics whenever a turnover occurred - a teams' chance of winning when -3 in turnovers is 6%. they used this info throughout the playoffs.

anyway i had provided the sports writer my turnover information in exactly that format - a teams' chance of winning (%) given the amount of +/- turnovers. and the percentages used in the tv graphics were identical to mine. keep in mind that this is long before the talking heads made such a fuss over turnovers, in fact they were rarely mentioned. from then on every time a team coughed the ball up the conversation was all about how important turnovers are.

i emailed the sports writer and told him i saw my work on the tube - i asked him if he had given this info to the networks. didn't hear back. i emailed him a dozen more times and never heard back from him! beautiful.


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[both-teams-played-hard]

i emailed the sports writer and told him i saw my work on the tube - i asked him if he had given this info to the networks. didn't hear back. i emailed him a dozen more times and never heard back from him! beautiful.

Welcome to Hollywood!

[aeneas01]

Welcome to Hollywood!

i would still like to know why mears hasn't responded to otismalibu's emails. perhaps chris nerat can opine? did mears really use otismalibu's info without so much as a thank you or credit? i would hope not given how stongly mears feels about their hard work being used by others, free of charge.

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[lund6771]

i would still like to know why mears hasn't responded to otismalibu's emails. perhaps chris nerat can opine? did mears really use otismalibu's info without so much as a thank you or credit? i would hope not given how stongly mears feels about their hard work being used by others, free of charge.

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Maybe they should thrown their own LOA in the trash and have Otismalibu write a LOA.....I mean they can still give a "waranty" on the item, but an LOA after this?

[trsent]

Is anyone ever pleased with anything anymore?

I do not know why MEARS didn't respond to a couple of emails, maybe their emails goes to the guy's spam folder, maybe they just don't like the guy. I don't mind the guy, I'd reply to his emails, but I rather worry about watching this Duckman DVD that I paused to type this response because I do not worry about why I get emails back from some people and not from others because I am not obsessed with attacking people who attempt to run an honest business.

In other news, it is funny how someone called them "scammers" before but they didn't explain what the scam is. Does anyone really believe they intentionally misidentified a pair of shoes to commit fraud or maybe just an honest mistake that the corrected when notified of such?

I know, every mistake ever is an attempt at fraud according to some.

[aeneas01]

Maybe they should thrown their own LOA in the trash and have Otismalibu write a LOA.....I mean they can still give a "waranty" on the item, but an LOA after this?

exactly - i really don't know how mears' original loa could still apply. if i were to offer my opinion on a unitas helmet for example, and state that it was his first year lid circa 1956, i don't know how this opinion could still hold water if i later discovered (or if it was brought to my attention by a fellow collector) that the helmet was in fact a circa 1962 unitas helmet. simply changing the date would equate to a dishonest opinion. i hope mears chimes in because imo this clearly isn't the best way to make a splash into the auction business - especially if mears is sincere about their advertised level of transparency.

as far as mears describing itself as a "research center" is concerned, dave grob explained to me in a recent email that the intent of his recent article ("Sey Hey") was to aslo "Introduce collectors to the idea that part of us buying this 15,000 square foot facility, was to make what we have available for their research, hence the name research and convention center." for the record, dave emphasized "their research" in bold.

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