Mears grading and selling

[SkubeBats]

I don't think it's o.k. that a company can grade their own bats then sell them. I believe they are grading their bat higher then they would for you or me this way they can jack up the price. I truly thinks this is harming the collecting comunity. This way their driving up the price, and the only one gaining is them not the true collector. I just think their in the wrong by doing this. I just wanted to see how everyone else felt about this.
Thanks.

[David]

Would you rather they not include any LOA or authenticity document with items the sell? Steiner, UDA and MLB teams include LOAs with items they sell, and I'm sure collectors wouldn't like it if they quit that practice.

[kingjammy24]

skube: is it wrong? well it's a conflict of interest to grade an item you have an interest in. i believe mears feels it isn't because they're letting you know up front that they have an interest in the item. unfortunately, simply letting someone know that you're doing something wrong doesn't mean it isn't wrong anymore. it simply means you're letting them know. mears could completely eliminate it by sending their items to a third party authenticator like taube. i don't know why they don't.

david: steiner doesn't provide authentication services. all they provide is a letter saying it's a steiner item. mears actually grades and authenticates. uda also doesn't do authentication. mlb uses a third party - deloitte and touche. there's a difference in providing a letter saying "this item originated from us" and an authentication. taube doesn't provide his own grades for the bats he sells, so why does mears?

rudy.

[Birdbats]

At the risk of getting jumped on, I'm not concerned about it. For years, before cards were slabbed, dealers would "grade" their own cards and charge more for higher-quality cards. That said, card grading is much more subjective than bat or jersey grading. I would have a big problem if PSA was selling cards graded by PSA -- there certainly is great potential for abuse.

But, if you've looked at the MEARS worksheet, it's not the same "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" process. A bat, for example, starts with a base grade of 5. Points are added or subtracted based on things like whether it's cracked, whether it matches factory records, whether it has first- or second-party provenance, whether it's consistent with a player's known characteristics, is the player's correct number on the knob, etc. There's a bit of subjectivity (does it show light use or medium use?), but overall it's not really being graded on condition, it's being graded on mostly objective attributes.

If MEARS wants to use its own grading system to grade its bats, I'm OK with that. I may or may not agree with their grade, and that would influence my decision to buy an item. Likewise, I may or may not agree with the price they're asking. I'm willing to say no if I think a price is too high.

If MEARS wants to say the bat it's selling is an A8 and ask for an above-book price, how is that any different than Alan Rosen calling an unslabbed card "mint" and selling it at a premium price? The only difference I see is that Mr. Mint's grade is purely his opinion. The bat's grade is more than an opinion; it's based on defined criteria.

[David]

My personal feeling is that it is fine for Bushing to have an LOA for items he sells, but the LOA should be his and distinctly different from MEARS. A 'Bushing Collectibles' versus a 'MEARS' LOA, making ownership and source clear.

[kingjammy24]

general discussions about conflicts of interest have arisen on this forum many times over and they've always had the same points made. my experience has led me to two conclusions:

1) an overwhelming number of people in this hobby, at all levels, have absolutely no idea what constitutes a conflict of interest, much less that it's objectively unethical.

2) no amount of discussion or explanation will ever enlighten someone who genuinely can't see the issues. like metaphysics, either you get it or you don't and never will.

contrary to what many seem to think, the idea of a conflict of interest isn't some bizarre, half-baked, experimental idea. the truth is it's a long established, widely accepted, fundamental principle taught in business and law schools and practiced by most of civilized corporate world. put simply, it's "..a situation in which a person has a personal interest sufficient to appear to influence the objective exercise of their professional duties"

whether it bothers you or not has no bearing on the fact that it's still a conflict of interest for an authenticator to grade an item they own. it's like someone asking "is it illegal for me to sell drugs?" and people answering "oh it wouldn't bother me". whether or not it bothers you is non-sequitur to the issue of it being wrong. you're simply stating that an unethical practice doesn't bother you, which is fine. it does nothing to address the fact that it's still wrong though.
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skube: keep in mind that some of the items you see for sale on mears may be consignments and not owned by mears employees. however, if mears is selling an item it owns with a mears authentication and grade, then it's a conflict of interest. have you emailed dave grob on the subject? from my experience, he has a pretty good understanding of ethical issues.

here's mears' statement on the issue:
"A [MEARS employee] may sell an item in a private transaction as an individual, but that item can not be submitted for a MEARS evaluation as part of that transaction. They will have to provide an independent letter of their own.."

jeff: whether there's great potential for abuse or only a little potential, it's still a conflict of interest. the only difference is the amount of damage caused.

"..it's not the same "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" process"

didn't you just post an entire thread about how you were mislead on a bat because you and the seller apparently had different interpretations of standard definitions?

"..whether it matches factory records"

http://www.gameuseduniverse.com/vb_forum/showthread.php?t=5363

http://www.gameuseduniverse.com/blog/post.php?topic=179

http://www.gameuseduniverse.com/vb_forum/showthread.php?t=4019

"how is that any different than Alan Rosen calling an unslabbed card "mint" and selling it at a premium price?"

people don't regard or pay rosen to authenticate. they view and patronize him strictly as a dealer. people know his grades aren't an industry standard or unbiased. he may call a card 'mint' but noone in their right mind would take that at face value as an objective, unbiased opinion. an authenticator, on the other hand, is expected to be objective and unbiased. when i buy a card from rosen, i know he's hyping it up because he's a dealer trying to get the highest price; i know there's bias. when i have a bat graded by taube, i don't expect anything but a completely unbiased opinion. now what if taube was selling me the bat? how can he possibly perform his duties as an unbiased authenticator? of course, taube doesn't grade the bats he sells for those very reasons. huge difference between a pure dealer like rosen selling an item and a noted authenticator grading and selling their own items.

rudy.

[Birdbats]

Rudy, please help me understand where to draw the line using my own experience as an example.

I know some collectors who will buy Cardinals bats through me that they wouldn't buy from other people simply because of my reputation for knowing Cardinals bats. I know they'll pay a premium for some bats for the same reason. Also, I occasionally will be asked to write letters of opinion on bats owned by others, which I guess makes me a small-time authenticator. Believe me, I'm thrilled and thankful to be in a position where people trust my opinion to that degree. Now, if I decided that one Pujols bat is an 8/10 because it's a brand he uses often and another is a 6/10 because he rarely uses the brand (using a grading scale I created), is it wrong for me to ask more for the higher "graded" bat?

I don't do a fraction of the authenticating/grading that MEARS does, I don't have the reputation Bushing does and I don't have close to the inventory available on their site. I'm WAY out of their league. But, in a small way, I'm doing the same things -- offering my opinions, selling bats (sometimes mine, sometimes on consignment), sharing information/articles on my Web site, etc.

Am I doing something unethical? Should I stop writing letters of opinion for people who ask? Should I stop selling for myself and others? Should I stop asking higher prices for bats that I consider to be superior examples?

Where should I draw the line?

Not trying to start a fight. I'm honestly curious and would appreciate your thoughts. You have a knack for breaking things down and analyzing the issues. Discounting the scale of our operations (what I do barely qualifies as an "operation"), how is what I do different than what MEARS does, ethically speaking?

[G1X]

There are a whole lot of folks in this hobby - including myself - who have absolutely no use for authenticating/grading services, LOAs, COAs, etc., etc., etc. No offense intended to anyone who does such work, and certainly not questioning anyone's integrity.

Do I think that it is a conflict of interest to authenticate/grade your own items that you have for sale? On the surface I say "yes", but it is much more complicated than that. Sometimes, there is no one else available who is willing AND qualified to give a written opinion. In some instances, there is information that is known only to the seller.

My question is this - why are so many collectors dependent on having paperwork, especially on items that are considered to be quite plentiful in the hobby (hence, easy to research), or for low-valued items of "common" players? The more access we have to information (internet, this Forum, etc.), the more it appears that collectors want paperwork. It seems that the opposite should be happening, but it's not.

As long as collectors keep insisting on paperwork, there will be a place in the hobby for authenticating, and there will always be these types of discussions. There is no one to blame but ourselves as long as we continue to feed the monster.

The bottom line is this. Do your own homework and figure it out for yourself. If you are convinced that the item is good, then buy it if you feel that the price is right. It's that simple.

Until this hobby is regulated - which will probably not happen in my lifetime - it's caveat emptor whether you like it or not (and regardless of whether you believe it or not).

Mark Hayne
Gridiron Exchange

[kingjammy24]

jeff, i think it's necessary to preface things by setting out some definitions.

without degenerating into a debate over semantics, i'll say that when this hobby talks about "authenticators" and "authentications", it's commonly accepted that these terms refer to commercial, professional, formal authentication. to this end, we all know that some items are sold without an "authentication" and some are sold with one.

inherantly, a conflict of interest is when an individual is placed in a situation in which there exists sufficient potential for bias to occur in the execution of their professional duties.

let's get to the heart of it then;

"if I decided that one Pujols bat is an 8/10 because it's a brand he uses often and another is a 6/10 because he rarely uses the brand (using a grading scale I created), is it wrong for me to ask more for the higher "graded" bat?"

it's only wrong if you own the bats and have graded them yourself.

you've chosen to fulfill two roles: dealer and authenticator. as a dealer, your interest lies in obtaining the highest price. as authenticator however, the price is irrelevant. as an authenticator, your only concern is accurately determining authenticity. a conflict of interest occurs when these two competing interests collide and contradict each other, thus creating the potential for bias.

authenticators are tasked with examining an item and reaching an unbiased and impartial decision regarding its authenticity. here is the heart of the matter: how can an authenticator escape the potential for bias when they stand to personally benefit from the sale? they cannot. it's a conflict of interest. your role as authenticator is biased because the higher you grade your own bat, the more you stand to profit. your "unbiased" authentications have the potential to be unfairly influenced by this fact, and thus they're biased. due to the existance of this conflict, people will think you could be grading them higher just to make more money. for your authentications to be impartial and unbiased, there cannot be anything that might unfairly influence them. objectively, the items must be able to stand on their own and as long as you stand to profit from them, they cannot. when i submit an item to mears or you, the authentication is unbiased because your gain is the same whether the item is good or bad.

"Should I stop writing letters of opinion for people who ask?"

if your intent is to end any conflicts of interest then simply don't be an authenticator and a dealer at the same time/on the same item. don't wear both hats at the same time. authenticate bats you don't own. sell bats you haven't authenticated/graded. that's all. write letters only on bats you don't own.

"Should I stop selling for myself and others?"

if you're selling for yourself, don't grade your own bats. wear one hat at a time. sell the bat as a "2003 pujols gamer with heavy use" instead of a "2003 pujols gamer that rates a 5/10 on your own scale". when you accept consignments, use a flat fee instead off a percentage. if you use a percentage, then it means you've got an incentive to grade the bat higher and again, the authentication is biased. conversely, if you use a flat fee, then your gradings can truly be unbiased because you don't stand to profit any more from a 2/10 than a 9/10.

"Should I stop asking higher prices for bats that I consider to be superior examples?"

charge whatever you like. just don't explicitly, formally, and publically grade them if you own them. it's the "authenticating/grading" part that's the slippery slope. selling 2 bats as "'03 pujols - light use - $500" and "03 pujols - heavy use - $900" is fine. when you sell a bat, issue a receipt, not an authentication. i realize most people will clamor for an "LOA". what can i say except that they're misguided and uninformed. maybe they're the same people who demand 42 oz. soft drinks and then complain that they've got diabetes. some folks don't really know what they should have.
when i bought a bat off taube, i asked him what he'd grade it and he told me he wouldn't grade a bat he was selling. i understood completely and it was the right answer. maybe other collectors would've badgered him for a grade.

"Where should I draw the line?"

see above. one hat a time.

"how is what I do different than what MEARS does, ethically speaking?"

mears' items may all be non-mears consignments. i don't know. furthermore, mears has several different authenticators which means that bushing can buy an item and sell it via mears but have troy or dave authenticate it, thereby allowing bushing to recuse himself from grading his own bat and eliminating the conflict. if you buy a bat and intend on grading it, can you recuse yourself and give it to someone else at birdbats inc? if not, then just have the bat authenticated by taube or anyone else. i realize you can technically do it but we're not talking about what people CAN do, we're talking about what people SHOULD do in the context of ethics. corporations have third-party accountants sign off on their annual reports. why? surely the in-house accountants can technically sign off. technically they can, but the results need to be unbiased and in-house accountants are inherantly potentially biased. hence, the corporations outsource it to an unbiased third-party so that the public will believe the results are unbiased and there is no conflict of interest.

mark: "why are so many collectors dependent on having paperwork"

i'm not sure if you referring to provenance or authentications. as a collector, i love provenance. i'll take all the provenance i can get. as a collector however, i have no use for authentications. those who do have no interest in acquiring the knowledge or in spending the time, hence they pay someone else to do it for them. it's the whole raison d'etre behind the service industry. why pay someone to mow your lawn or do your taxes or change your oil? same thing. those individuals want a 1992 george brett gamer but they're not interested in learning about them.

rudy.

[Birdbats]

Rudy,

Thanks for the exhaustive breakdown. I do really appreciate it and respect your opinions. And I see your points, though I still have a hard time agreeing with some of them because it's just too difficult to separate the roles.

Take authenticating a Pujols bat. You mentioned an example: "selling 2 bats as '03 pujols - light use - $500 and 03 pujols - heavy use - $900 is fine." Well, I know that there's a decent chance a Pujols bat with heavy use may not have been used by Pujols in a game. If a Pujols bat is hammered, it likely was a BP bat or it was used by someone else. All else being equal, the lightly used bat probably is worth more because there's a better chance it's legit. It's counterintuitive, but makes perfect sense to me as someone who specializes in Pujols bats. I think if someone was buying a Pujols bat from me and I didn't include an LOA that spelled out such things, that would just seem odd. As for the "major" authenticators, they ask me for tips on recognizing Pujols gamers (I could show you the e-mails). With all due respect to them, should I provide LOAs from people who don't understand Pujols bats as well as I do? They may be unbiased, but would they really add any credibility?

I know that's a very specific and out-of-the-norm example to use, but it suggests that gray areas exist in the conversation. I was thinking about this over the weekend and similar situations are all around us. For example, if you inherited a diamond ring, who would you take it to tell you it's real and share an opinion about its quality? The same jeweler who sells diamonds. If your AC is on the fritz, who do you call to diagnose the problem? The same HVAC guy who sells new AC units. The sufficient potential of conflict of interest abuse is everywhere, from your car dealership (who fixes cars and appraises your trade) to your doctor (who makes more money for procedures than for telling you to go home and take asprin). As buyers, we can and should get second opinions, especially regarding those items and services where we have no expertise. But, at some point, we have to trust that someone can be objective even when fudging the truth can be more profitable. Believe it or not, those people are out there. And if, at some point, that person proves otherwise, we have the right to take our business elsewhere (as someone who was burned recently and commented about it on this forum, I know this well).

I could debate you on several points regarding MEARS, ethics and more, but there's no need to. I doubt too many people find this interesting. We can just agree to disagree. Thanks for making me think.