Question for Heritage and comiclink reps wrt Burkey admission 2 2

[Rick2you2]

1 hour ago, Unstoppablejayd said:

It should be mentioned that shill bidding is likely a crime under Federal law, as well as various State’s laws. You will find the subject pops up quite a bit, particularly in eBay auctions. And, if something is criminal, there is usually a civil basis to sue someone (example- the crime of murder is also an intentional tort, like wrongful death.)

[Unstoppablejayd]

5 minutes ago, Rick2you2 said:

It should be mentioned that shill bidding is likely a crime under Federal law, as well as various State’s laws. You will find the subject pops up quite a bit, particularly in eBay auctions. And, if something is criminal, there is usually a civil basis to sue someone (example- the crime of murder is also an intentional tort, like wrongful death.)

scary stuff this whole market manipulation

[First Upgrade]

[Will_K]

I WAS just about to ask "Where's John Turturro when you really need him ??"

In any case, I have to keep in mind that whenever I'm bidding, I could be bidding against dealers.

Edited November 8, 2020 by Will_K

[First Upgrade]

"Answer..."

[Rick2you2]

16 hours ago, Will_K said:

I WAS just about to ask "Where's John Turturro when you really need him ??"

In any case, I have to keep in mind that whenever I'm bidding, I could be bidding against dealers.

Also, keep in mind that this stuff is just stuff, and not worth stress. So when I have seen pieces’ prices rise to a level I cannot understand marketwise, I walk away and don’t look back. There really are an amazing amount of talented artists out there, and I don’t feel any need to collect trophies.

Edited November 9, 2020 by Rick2you2

[aokartman]

4 hours ago, StumbleBum said:

Not in Texas. Ask N P Gresham, he'll tell you that shill bidding is perfectly legal in Texas and says so right in their TOS.

These days, just think of it as a hidden reserve.  In the olden days, it was a bidding pool.  Similar concept.  David

[Rick2you2]

4 hours ago, StumbleBum said:

Not in Texas. Ask N P Gresham, he'll tell you that shill bidding is perfectly legal in Texas and says so right in their TOS.

Please clarify.

[Bronty]

I think the way it works is that the house can bid on their own items in the sale if any, and that it can bid on other items in the sale only when there is a reserve and the reserve is unmet (that process is what allows for the bump to just under reserve that we typically see on the few lots with a reserve a couple days before auction date).    But hopefully someone more knowledgeable on the specifics will pipe up.

What the house can't do, at least to my belief, is just bid on whatever it feels like.   

Its either:

1) their items; or

2) items with reserves not yet met.

At least as far as I understand it.

Edited November 9, 2020 by Bronty

[grapeape]

15 minutes ago, StumbleBum said:

Similar BS, yes. It's shill bidding plain and simple and ought to be illegal like on Ebay. This is one reason I never have and never will buy anything from HA.

Fact:

You won’t find the quality of items on eBay that you do on HA.Not so easy to exclude the worlds premier auctioneer of  comic art if you’re a serious collector. 

The biggest shill bidding bar none takes place on.....wait for it.....eBay.

Im not knocking your opinion at all. I just want collectors especially new ones to know the score.

I hate reserves as a buyer.

I hate shill bids.

Never make a bid unless you honestly hope to own a piece. We joke all the time about “punishment bids” where you bid to keep a rival from getting a piece on the cheap ( think Dave from Storage Wars “drop it on him.” “Yep!!”) Still even there there is the risk that a bid could be a winning bid. You could be stuck with a piece you didn’t really want!

Art is listed and bought back all the time by the original owner (lister) that is it never leaves their hands. I know this because I watch everything and have for many years. The seller sees his piece is going to sell too low and has a partner “buy the page.” The seller absorbs the fee and finds a different strategy to sell.

Thats why “bargains” are virtually impossible to find. If you want to buy in to this market, research it exhaustively and buy bid accordingly.

some sellers are terrified of the prospect of “losing” big money by letting art list without a reserve.

Sad solution we get reserves which are the same as no auction at all and do not excite buyers.

Worse we get

1) scardey cats afraid to take a bath list an “auction” piece and have their friends protect them with shill bids.

2) Auction houses or sellers that privately promote “price protection” with buy backs and shill bids.

Whats the cure? Don’t bid on anything you’re not happy with at your max bid. Then you can’t lose.

Grapeape almost extensively

1) lists a nominal starting bid say 99 cents and let the market decide...scary but I’ve almost always matched or exceeded my expectations.

2) listed at HA or Comiclink no reserve and excepted my fate with no shills.

Heres the good news. Are there shenanigans within the original comic art market?   YES

Should that preclude or discourage you from collecting, buying and selling art?

HELL NO

Information is the key. Learn the score and you will enjoy, thrive and do well in this hobby. 

 

[Will_K]

1 hour ago, grapeape said:

( think Dave from Storage Wars “drop it on him.” “Yep!!”)

I've watched way more than my fair share of Storage Wars.  Dave was the most disliked of them all.  And he was certainly the shrewdest of them.  And he knew why he was bidding on a locker.  At least that's the way it was presented on the "reality show".  So take it with a storage locker full of grains of salt.  And he did run up bids just for fun.  On the other hand, in running up bids, I don't recall him ever getting stuck with a locker he didn't want.  Again... "reality show".

I was also fan of Auction Hunters.  Allen and Ton always turned out some fun episodes.

[pemart1966]

48 minutes ago, Will_K said:

I've watched way more than my fair share of Storage Wars.  Dave was the most disliked of them all.  And he was certainly the shrewdest of them.  And he knew why he was bidding on a locker.  At least that's the way it was presented on the "reality show".  So take it with a storage locker full of grains of salt.  And he did run up bids just for fun.  On the other hand, in running up bids, I don't recall him ever getting stuck with a locker he didn't want.  Again... "reality show".

I was also fan of Auction Hunters.  Allen and Ton always turned out some fun episodes.

 Storage Wars is fake...

[cstojano]

I am ok with HA bidding up to the reserve the days before the auction. I am not ok with Prop Store doing the same thing during the live auction. I have seen items that site at, say, 500 dollars in the pre-auction bidding with a low estimate of 1000. During the auction, the auctioneer calls, 600, 700, 800, 900 and then stops, coaxing the 1k bid which is the reserve. This gives the false sense of live action on an item. HA sort of does the same but its less pressure because it don't before living bidding. 

[RBerman]

This forum taught me the term "Chandelier Bidding" earlier this year.

[Rick2you2]

5 hours ago, grapeape said:

Fact:

You won’t find the quality of items on eBay that you do on HA.Not so easy to exclude the worlds premier auctioneer of  comic art if you’re a serious collector. 

The biggest shill bidding bar none takes place on.....wait for it.....eBay.

Im not knocking your opinion at all. I just want collectors especially new ones to know the score.

I hate reserves as a buyer.

I hate shill bids.

Never make a bid unless you honestly hope to own a piece. We joke all the time about “punishment bids” where you bid to keep a rival from getting a piece on the cheap ( think Dave from Storage Wars “drop it on him.” “Yep!!”) Still even there there is the risk that a bid could be a winning bid. You could be stuck with a piece you didn’t really want!

Art is listed and bought back all the time by the original owner (lister) that is it never leaves their hands. I know this because I watch everything and have for many years. The seller sees his piece is going to sell too low and has a partner “buy the page.” The seller absorbs the fee and finds a different strategy to sell.

Thats why “bargains” are virtually impossible to find. If you want to buy in to this market, research it exhaustively and buy bid accordingly.

some sellers are terrified of the prospect of “losing” big money by letting art list without a reserve.

Sad solution we get reserves which are the same as no auction at all and do not excite buyers.

Worse we get

1) scardey cats afraid to take a bath list an “auction” piece and have their friends protect them with shill bids.

2) Auction houses or sellers that privately promote “price protection” with buy backs and shill bids.

Whats the cure? Don’t bid on anything you’re not happy with at your max bid. Then you can’t lose.

Grapeape almost extensively

1) lists a nominal starting bid say 99 cents and let the market decide...scary but I’ve almost always matched or exceeded my expectations.

2) listed at HA or Comiclink no reserve and excepted my fate with no shills.

Heres the good news. Are there shenanigans within the original comic art market?   YES

Should that preclude or discourage you from collecting, buying and selling art?

HELL NO

Information is the key. Learn the score and you will enjoy, thrive and do well in this hobby. 

 

Bargains are almost impossible to find if you are interested in making money, at least in the short run. 

The reason for this qualification, as I have said before, is that there is no good reason to buy based on what is popular purely for the sake of the art.  With all due respect to Jim Lee fans, those who drool at “McSpidey” covers, or think anything signed by Kirby is worth almost any price, there is a lot of really good work out there for a lot less. Just walk away.

[vodou]

2 hours ago, cstojano said:

During the auction, the auctioneer calls, 600, 700, 800, 900 and then stops, coaxing the 1k bid which is the reserve. This gives the false sense of live action on an item.

 

2 hours ago, RBerman said:

This forum taught me the term "Chandelier Bidding" earlier this year.

[Rick2you2]

2 hours ago, RBerman said:

This forum taught me the term "Chandelier Bidding" earlier this year.

You may want to read more about it in: “ “The Chandelier” in the Phantom of the Auction” at the website “Center for Art Law.”

The author isn’t exactly right about the reference to the Uniform Commercial Code or UCC. While it is technically just a model law which states can adopt or not, I believe it has now been adopted in all states, although they have not adopted the same versions of it or have modified it occasionally.

[Will_K]

4 hours ago, pemart1966 said:

 Storage Wars is fake...

At this point, it's pretty well assumed that every "reality show" has a good amount of "fakeness" to it. 

[grapeape]

5 hours ago, StumbleBum said:

Oh I don't collect OA.

You have no proof of this, of course. I say Heritage shill bids more than there is on Ebay. I have the same proof you do.

Two things good about Ebay: Ebay the company is not shill bidding me and I can see the bids, IDs of users, and bid with seller percentages on Ebay. All helpful clues.

This should be an arrestable offense.

Reserves don't bother because at least their honest. Heritage not so much.

 

8 hours ago, StumbleBum said:

Similar BS, yes. It's shill bidding plain and simple and ought to be illegal like on Ebay. This is one reason I never have and never will buy anything from HA.

StumbleBum you gave ebay a pass praising them for having a policy making shill bidding “illegal.” 
You said I have no proof and I guess you have no proof?

Sigh

This isn’t personal.

ebay does not get a pass. It is not in their best interest to enforce anti shill bidding because they make more money turning a blind eye.

Proof.

I bid on a page many years ago. I watched incredulously as a 0-1 feedback bidder “found” my high bid by chipping away $25 at a time. I lost the page by ten dollars to this “bidder.” Five minutes later the seller contacts me saying, “uh the winner backed out so the page is available to you.” My first taste of being shilled. I reported it and nothing was done. The seller obviously had a partner “find” my bid but oops he played too much and wound up “buying” the page. The bizarre bidding patterns and future collusion enforced my righteous contempt for the shenanigans.
 

Other times I’ve seen (redacted) with a page in their possession “sell” on eBay only to reappear in short order back on their site or collection. Many of my friends here have experienced the same bs.

Monitoring many eBay auctions for years you see the behavior, the “clues” like hot cakes. Comic books, art, posters, collectibles doesn’t matter. Rampant shill activity unchecked.

All things being equal and with eBay having infinitely larger inventories of products on auction 24/7 there is quantitatively more shill bidding taking place on eBay then anywhere else. It’s very easy to track deviant bidding patterns and the culprits. No doubt HA has shilling too.

My point is to warn and protect collectors especially new collectors that I try to mentor here (not that they’ve asked me too😂) but I don’t want collectors, myself included to get taken for a ride.

I believe you also wanted to warn others here so I really don’t want to go back and forth. 
 

Look, for all collectors out there. This is supposed to be fun. But it depends on how you play the game. Don’t get played. If you wanna be a hustler and jump in with the big boys they’ll let you win for awhile. Then when you’re feeling cocky they run you off the table, off the field whatever. 
Stay in your lane. Don’t go after a piece that’s beyond your budget. If you bid and win something, then get a sinking feeling you got hosed (shilled for example) learn from it. FMV is only part of this. A pro knows when to pay more then FMV for a piece with mass potential. Everyone else is stuck in FMV. I recently sold a page. The interested buyer presented me with examples of comps to tell me why my page should be lower in price. I went back and sparked his imagination with the art itself. Look at every panel on this page. Do you see what I see? I asked. For comps he had similar issues, dates and prices. He was lacking  the actual eye test comparison. My page had a major character in every panel kicking A. To his credit the interested buyer saw it my way and paid up. No question he will do very well in the future.

Pursuing OA has some risk. It’s worth it. 
Shilling makes me angry. I don’t like it. But I’m not packing my portfolio and walking away. Im using my knowledge that shill exists, using my skills to detect it, and offering what I’m happy to offer anyways. I never walk away anymore worried about what any other bidder does.

Be true to thine own self.

🍇 + 🦍

 

Edited November 10, 2020 by grapeape

[grapeape]

1 hour ago, vodou said:

 

🥤🦍