Heritage Auctions Thread

[JeremiahJT | 75]

59 minutes ago, AdamW said:

I doubt that, because that would've been one of the relatively few things you can say on a "reality" TV show that actually could get you into trouble, I think possibly with both the FCC and FTC. I'd be really surprised if he'd said that knowing it to be absolutely false.

Of course the offers could have been from Deniz and Jim themselves. The "offers" really existed. Now if another copy of the same game ends up going for much less and the seller decides to take one of those offers there is nothing stopping whoever made the offers to go through with the sale.

 

So WATA can say whatever they want about the offers as long as they were "made" by someone. Of course that someone is under no obligation to go through with the purchase once the game is done with its turn on Pawn Stars.

Edited September 3, 2021 by JeremiahJT

[spacepup | 2,405]

I think that there are many conflicts of interest in this arena.  Now, 'conflicts of interest' do not necessarily mean that anything shady, unethical, or illegal is going on.  However, conflicts of interest can deeply affect perception and also create incentives and opportunity for certain types of negative behavior and/or exploitation.

Different industries deal with conflicts of interest in different ways.  Some do not require disclosure.  Some require disclosure.  Some explicitly disallow certain conflicts of interest to exist, period.  

There are many businesses / industries, where a conflict of interest is not necessarily a bad thing, but it is understood that the disclosures help all parties involved to decide whether they feel comfortable pursuing a particular transaction or interest.

For example, if the same attorney represents both me and my spouse in a divorce, there could be a conflict of interest such that I may not feel comfortable that all the advice is in my best interests.  

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I feel that there are enough conflicts of interest, with WATA/Heritage previously, and WATA/Goldin now, that in both scenarios, there is a strong incentive for WATA to grade items as high as possible, and there is a strong incentive for them to intentionally impact the market as much as possible to increase the value of items.

I personally can't prove exactly what happened or didn't happen in these cases, but I think what a business should do in these situations, is (a) disclose very clearly any conflicts of interest, to make the public aware, and (b) reduce or minimize as many conflicts as possible, to minimize the potential for them to affect outside perception.  

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What I think WATA should do, is address the concerns in some manner.  To my knowledge (and I could be wrong), they have made no meaningful public comments or statements on any of this, or on any of the concerns that the public and/or some sealed collectors may have.  And I realize it is a hot mess right now and they are in a tricky situation, but I think the more time that elapses, the worse it will look.  There is an opportunity for redemption and positive change and growth here, if they decide to take it.

 

[Zach | 186]

RareBucky is that you? 

[WalterWhiteJr. | 1,162]

7 minutes ago, Zach said:

RareBucky is that you? 

This is so wrong 

[AdamW | 713]

7 minutes ago, Zach said:

RareBucky is that you? 

Heh, if that's real, I think it might even be actionable. Aren't there laws about cartel behaviour?

[AdamW | 713]

24 minutes ago, JeremiahJT said:

Of course the offers could have been from Deniz and Jim themselves. The "offers" really existed. Now if another copy of the same game ends up going for much less and the buyer decides to take one of those offers there is nothing stopping whoever made the offers to go through with the sale.

 

So WATA can say whatever they want about the offers as long as they were "made" by someone. Of course that someone is under no obligation to go through with the purchase once the game is done with its turn on Pawn Stars.

Sure. Not mentioning that the offer is from an interested party, or the offer being somewhat...non-firm, would be the kind of things you can do on a "reality" TV show.

[WarMech | 82]

18 minutes ago, Zach said:

RareBucky is that you? 

That needs to be reported IMMEDIATELY.

[OptOut | 8,889]

18 minutes ago, Zach said:

RareBucky is that you? 

[Jeevan | 8,914]

1 minute ago, WarMech said:

That needs to be reported IMMEDIATELY.

definitely, tweet them?

[CodysGameRoom | 2,008]

So weird. Why not just buy the item and list it higher yourself then and avoid coming off weird as fuck?

[WarMech | 82]

5 minutes ago, Jeevan said:

definitely, tweet them?

I actively avoid twitter and I'm not about to go there now.

[Jeevan | 8,914]

Just now, WarMech said:

I actively avoid twitter and I'm not about to go there now.

Well, if it is true, i hope it gets reported and that the party involved gets a punch to the ****.......just sayin' 

Also, really depens on how true it is, obviously i have no clue who either party is, but hopefully if the first is trustworthy they will report it to the proper "authority"

[Tanooki | 4,940]

10 minutes ago, CodysGameRoom said:

So weird. Why not just buy the item and list it higher yourself then and avoid coming off weird as fuck?

Because if this is real they’d be buying it cheap ruining the public record they want to create where it costs a lot more.   If they want X at 500 and someone sets a paid value hundreds less it hurts their price fixing. 

[guitarzombie | 924]

I love it.

[Beam | 6]

8 minutes ago, Zach said:

RareBucky is that you? 

Sorry but this reads like an obvious LARP. Looks like everyone on Twitter is eating it up though.

[GPX | 1,370]

47 minutes ago, JeremiahJT said:

Of course the offers could have been from Deniz and Jim themselves. The "offers" really existed. Now if another copy of the same game ends up going for much less and the seller decides to take one of those offers there is nothing stopping whoever made the offers to go through with the sale.

 

So WATA can say whatever they want about the offers as long as they were "made" by someone. Of course that someone is under no obligation to go through with the purchase once the game is done with its turn on Pawn Stars.

Ok, I need to get this off my chest. When I saw that Pawn Stars Mario NES episode I said it way earlier on it was market manipulation.

Firstly, a grading company shouldn’t be the first person to valuate the price of a game. It’s not their business, a conflict of interest, and it doesn’t build confidence in the regular consumers of the market (this includes myself).

Secondly, when you claim to be a fair judge on market values, you don’t talk about “offers” that were spoke about. That is Ebay seller talk, not professional price valuation speak. Market values should be talked about in historical sold prices. And ideally confirmed sold prices. Not this BS wishy-washy “I heard of someone telling me that there was a $300,000 offer given to someone”. How many of us can say that exact same shit?!

Thirdly, when you go on to a public show and tell the world “this is the only one exist of high grade, early print that we know of”. Effectively that is giving out FREE population report. And when no one asked. Is that directing the market to focus on certain specific items?

Fourthly, the answer to the above question is “YES”! How can you be confident of this GPX, you ask? Well, when a lot of collectors actually want/ask/beg for pop reports to be made public, the reverse applies. We get “we don’t give out pop reports because it might mislead consumers of actual rarity and how much to spend on”. So when no one asked for pop reports, you give, and when everyone asks for pop reports, you don’t. Yep, seems fair!

[guillavoie | 1,210]

1 hour ago, Zach said:

RareBucky is that you? 

I love the 'we wish you well' overall tone of this, lol! That's crazy to send a message like that, let alone the fact he's just hoping to pump a game at $270.

BTW, no chance that it is rarebucky, not his style at all.

[spacepup | 2,405]

That message looks too ridiculous to be real, IMO.  I suppose it's possible, but idk, I'm a bit skeptical.

[O.G. CIB | 415]

2 minutes ago, spacepup said:

That message looks too ridiculous to be real, IMO.  I suppose it's possible, but idk, I'm a bit skeptical.

I’ve got at least 5 messages similar to this or the “you’re selling too low” over the last few years. My reply is….. you’re always welcome to purchase it. The “protecting your investment” mentality in gaming has been out there long before any of this. 

[guillavoie | 1,210]

5 minutes ago, spacepup said:

That message looks too ridiculous to be real, IMO.  I suppose it's possible, but idk, I'm a bit skeptical.

Indeed, it does sound over the top too stupid to be true, and I do hope it is, lol. But on the other hand you never know how ridiculous people can be about prices on eBay sometimes.

[avatar! | 1,820]

1 hour ago, Zach said:

RareBucky is that you? 

I'm sure this message is 100% real. Same thing happens in ALL collectibles including coins, books, comic books, you name it...

[mlbfan10 | 340]

23 minutes ago, guillavoie said:

I love the 'we wish you well' overall tone of this, lol! That's crazy to send a message like that, let alone the fact he's just hoping to pump a game at $270.

BTW, no chance that it is rarebucky, not his style at all.

Exactly, gotta love people who never actually talked to the person says yup this may just be the person!

Edited September 3, 2021 by mlbfan10

[ICrappedMyPants | 302]

2 hours ago, AdamW said:

This doesn't seem as odd to me as it does to you. I mean, if you get a gemstone assessed, the same person will decide if it's genuine, weigh it, grade it, and then give you an estimate of its price (and then, possibly, offer to buy it off you). If you get your house assessed, the same person will come and count the bedrooms and check if the roof's falling off and give an estimate of the price. They don't have separate people for each function. They're pretty related functions.

Those aren't perfect comparisons, of course, and there are "checks and balances" in those cases that don't necessarily exist in games yet, but I don't find the very concept that the same person might both grade and value an item weird.

I get what you’re saying. My biggest issue is that WATA has the ability to highly influence the market landscape in providing values because there isn’t much of a competitive market for their services like the example you provided. Also, they are telling the world the value on a game that they graded versus providing a value to a customer.  This is why I’d argue that they cross the line where conflicts of interest become problematic. 

[Silent Hill | 276]

51 minutes ago, Mr. CIB said:

55 minutes ago, spacepup said:

That message looks too ridiculous to be real, IMO.  I suppose it's possible, but idk, I'm a bit skeptical.

I’ve got at least 5 messages similar to this or the “you’re selling too low” over the last few years. My reply is….. you’re always welcome to purchase it. The “protecting your investment” mentality in gaming has been out there long before any of this. 

While I've personally never gotten a message like this in my 14 years on eBay, I know there are some wild ass people out there. That said, wouldn't you think that they'd just buy the game low to acquire more copies and guarantee their manipulation? Especially something that's a few hundred bucks...

[GPX | 1,370]

21 minutes ago, Silent Hill said:

While I've personally never gotten a message like this in my 14 years on eBay, I know there are some wild ass people out there. That said, wouldn't you think that they'd just buy the game low to acquire more copies and guarantee their manipulation? Especially something that's a few hundred bucks...

You can argue that the intention was to plant a seed jn the seller’s mind, and ultimately to make the seller raise prices in all of his inventory. My take is that the message is representative of greed promoting greed. It isn’t just simply to corner a market for one item.