Heritage Auctions Thread

[Alder | 243]

Karl writes in this tweet that he is not against grading:

 

[arch_8ngel | 1,597]

1 hour ago, TDIRunner said:

That doesn't make it impossible to refute his findings, so my sarcasm still stands.  

Well, it sounds like CU hired a PR firm to respond on their behalf

[Brickman | 3,987]

All these comments about WATA/HA not being given a chance to comment are classic misdirection tactics.

Do people seriously think even if they were given the chance they would say “wow you’re right Karl we are manipulating the market” just look at what Blizzard are currently doing.

Anyway, read some news articles if you want your comment from them. HA have given a denial comment which is probably pretty much what they would have said to Karl.

Also, I doubt Karl is worried about getting sued. 1) he’s in Australia, what are they going to do? Drag him out of the country to a US court? Worst that happens is YT takes the video down 2) he links his info to actual hard FACTS which some are trying to glaze over like they aren’t actually there.

[darkchylde28 | 1,546]

19 hours ago, Foxhack said:

You mean the same shady shit they've been accused of before?

https://twitter.com/CatDeSpira/status/1414440756924751873

The Tweet doesn't want to embed for some reason.

Blog post about it from 2009: https://www.originalprop.com/blog/2009/10/27/heritage-auction-galleries-lawsuit-in-the-news-claims-of-fake-bidder-n-p-gresham-auction-manipulation/

Bingo.  And mentioned very briefly in the video is that this case was settled out of court, with the details being kept hush hush.  So, smoking gun, HA doesn't want to go to court, makes a quiet, presumably NDA wrapped payment and the official case/charge goes away.

19 hours ago, ExplodedHamster said:

I have seen this cited before, but never seen anything about where the lawsuit went. I believe the man who filed it also owed Heritage like half a million from a failed Joint Venture. My guess is nothing came of it or there would be more articles.

It's referenced very briefly in the video.  It was settled out of court, with the specific details of that settlement conveniently undisclosed.  In virtually every case like this, when someone takes another party to court and that party goes ahead and pays out versus going through a very public, on-the-record trial, it's a solid indicator that they've done exactly what they've been accused of and are more than happy to make a lump sum payment to make it go away, as that is worth less to them than the permanent blemish of being publicly caught with their hands in the cookie jar would do to their reputation.

15 hours ago, ExplodedHamster said:

Top condition items of popular franchises/athletes/characters are what sell when hobbies transform into large-scale collectibles (Jordan rookies, Charizards, Turtles, etc). SE and Dinosaur Peak are games basically nobody played and have absolutely no large-scale impact. They are niche. They will still sell fine,  as enough old school collectors are around, but the items that will be worth the most will be the highest grade Marios, Zeldas, and Pokemons of the world. 

I won't argue that SE and Dino Peak weren't really enjoyed by many people (by availability of exposure or the games being good), but I will argue about their "right" to sit at the top of the food chain value-wise.  An example of this in classic car circles would be a Shelby GT-500KR Mustang, a car that very few people bothered to buy, thus few enjoyed them at all compared to other examples of the car (the GT-500 or any other model of Mustang from the same model year), and yet that one tends to hold the top spot in regard to value.  Why?  Because it's rare.  Is it a great car?  Under the hood, sure, but personally (and I know I'm not alone), I believe it was ugly AF and worse than the more common, much more enjoyed and experienced examples of the vehicle.  Which, by your argument, should mean that regular 'ol classic big block Mustangs in great shape should whip the dog shit out of the GT-500KR simply because more people actually got to love them...and yet that's not the case.  In regard to collectibles, rarity is the true, lasting top dog indicator of value long term.

14 hours ago, JeremiahJT said:

If popularity is the driving force for collectibles then why is the most expensive card of a baseball player nobody alive has seen play? Shouldn't it be a Jordan or James card?

I cannot comment on Pokemon or Turtles (as in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?), but comics also does not follow this perfectly. Spider-Man is by far more popular than Superman, but Action Comics #1 is number one. One of the two main reasons is its rarity.

It seems video games is an outlier where popularity (or opportunity for more exploitation) trumps rarity. Trumps it by an order of magnitude at that.

Bingo.  Rarity is the top indicator of value in any normal, "mature" collectibles market, simply because there are people who have to have it all, and folks of that disposition with the most money will eventually, ultimately, make the rarest items in a specific field of collectibles more expensive than everything else.

13 hours ago, OptOut said:

Healthy looking graph there, huh! Jim Halperin helped do this to the graded coin market in the 80's... Now he's playing with our toys.

Anyone want to bet on where the Super Mario 64 would sit on a graph like that? Good luck speculating in a market where you are blind and others can see...

Don't forget that Halperin specifically got fined $1.2M by the FTC, in the 80s (when that wasn't chump change the way it was today), for what he'd done to manipulate the market.  I can't remember if the specific charge(s) he received the fine under were mentioned (don't know if it was specifically referred to as fraud or not), but the government doesn't just go handing out $1M+ fines willy nilly for no reason, and the fact that this wasn't appealed and repealed speaks volumes about Halperin's guilt on this.

8 hours ago, Gulag Joe said:

Atwood paid $20 for a pallet of junked Stadium Events and then hyped the junk up on the internet to 4 figures and it happened so long ago that many of you still believe his bullshit to be true to this day and didn't even realize you were being conned. That is the biggest scam I've seen in this hobby. It's the "Stadium Events" of market manipulating scams.

Atwood lucked out.  SE was a 4 figure game long, long before he was ever outed as a name, let alone him giving interviews and showing photos of the stuff he'd stumbled into decades before.  How do I know?  Because I was/am one of the poor chumps who was lacking that cart and unable to afford it (due to 15-20 years of actual market progression) long before Tim Atwood's name ever graced the internet (or any other media in connection to gaming).  I still don't have that cart, and likely never will due to how the market escalated it to the stratosphere...all before WATA and HA partnered up and sent everything going mad price-wise.

3 hours ago, Gulag Joe said:

Maybe he doesn't say that, but the entire part where he doesn't give any of the people he accuses of committing high crimes to speak out against the allegations he's making against them absolutely equates to him admitting he hates to present a truly fair and unbiased story. And Karl is making significant money off of these accusations. Almost 500k views, that's roughly $3,800 so far!

Oh noes, neither WATA nor HA have been shown to have access to the media to make any sort of statement.  Past events certainly wouldn't indicate that HA has a stable of lawyers on call to take care of any sort of accusations that might come their way. 

2 hours ago, guitarzombie said:

Do you believe the earth is flat too?

You know what's funny?  In the most recent update, Minecraft, a game where the world is literally flat, now shows the curvature of the Earth when you're flying high enough.  If it's good enough for Steve, Alex, and the Ender Dragon... 

2 hours ago, CodysGameRoom said:

Sick of this dumb argument. No opportunity to speak out? We're all here. We're all waiting. Deniz, Jim, The dentist, Dain, Go Collect Jeff, Heritage, WATA, any one of them can respond to this right now. Hell, maybe Heritage can put out another one of their manipulative press releases. There's always a chance to respond. The ball is literally in their court. If they choose not to respond publicly to this video, then the entire "he didn't give them a chance to speak" argument is moot. 

Bingo.  They certainly needed a video from this guy in order to dump multiple press releases about their success, how what they're doing has increased the value of games in that market, etc., right?  How dare he gag them by not saying "Simon Says" for them!

29 minutes ago, AdamW said:

There's kind of a substantial difference between "making someone aware" (oddly vague phrasing) that you are "investigating" (presumably the whole area in general), and actually giving them a right of reply to specific allegations. Notably, one of the sites that reported on the video *did* contact HA to put the allegations to them, and got the reply cited a few pages back.

Of course, Karl doesn't "have" to do that any more than WATA "has" to disclose population reports. He's probably not signed up to any professional journalistic code of ethics, after all. But sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander - if you can judge WATA/HA for doing things you dislike that aren't against any actual laws or rules, you can equally well judge Karl for the same, I guess.

...not really.  He reached out to them to be able to talk to them, letting them know he was investigating their business(es).  Had they responded, I'm confident Karl Jobst absolutely would have hit them up with various questions relating to the points he was making in his video.  But, they blew him off, therefore, from any reasonable journalistic perspective, he had zero additional responsibility to let them know exactly what he'd been researching, what he'd been found, etc.  If they weren't good enough to speak/meet with him in good faith at the beginning, why should he prepare them for the dirt that he's managed to dig up through various and public records after the fact?  This should be a lesson to them to take journalists up on their offers to speak when they first reach out versus burying their heads in the sand and being surprised when this type of espose drops on their doorstep.

[CodysGameRoom | 2,008]

1 hour ago, Gulag Joe said:

He disclosed none of that info in his video that he's currently collecting thousands of dollars on right now. Must be nice to make money off of talking shit about people who weren't given a fair opportunity to defend themselves.

lol are we attacking YouTube content creators now? I know some on this board have it out for Pat but jesus. This guy did the work and the research, there's clearly an audience of people watching the video. There's nothing wrong with this guy making money off of his video. 

It's insane to me that you attack this guy who made the video and say he shouldn't be able to make money off it, but you defend WATA and Heritage. Boggles my fucking mind. 

[CodysGameRoom | 2,008]

34 minutes ago, AdamW said:

they're very stupid

exactly!

Actually, they are pretty smart for pulling off this con for so long. But not smart enough.

[darkchylde28 | 1,546]

1 minute ago, CodysGameRoom said:

lol are we attacking YouTube content creators now? I know some on this board have it out for Pat but jesus. This guy did the work and the research, there's clearly an audience of people watching the video. There's nothing wrong with this guy making money off of his video. 

It's insane to me that you attack this guy who made the video and say he shouldn't be able to make money off it, but you defend WATA and Heritage. Boggles my fucking mind. 

Hey, when you can't discredit the message, do it to the messenger instead.  Smear them and the message, propped up by more facts and figures than have been offered anywhere in this thread by folks who disagree with it (seriously, it's all "I believe" and "well I know him and he wouldn't" and straight up "nuh uh"), so that's basically what's left.  The more shit like this crops up, the more I'm in line with the folks taking a harder edge to all of this and saying straight up that the dissenters are dissenting primarily (or perhaps solely) because of having skin in the game.  The bubble pops, then everybody with games they bought specifically to pump and dump lose their asses.

[inasuma | 1,203]

32 minutes ago, Alder said:

Karl writes in this tweet that he is not against grading:

 

too bad he didn't actually interview anyone at wata or heritage. even a "they didn't respond to my requests for comment" would have saved him from appearing even more bias than he already is.

[darkchylde28 | 1,546]

4 minutes ago, inasuma said:

too bad he didn't actually interview anyone at wata or heritage. even a "they didn't respond to my requests for comment" would have saved him from appearing even more bias than he already is.

Please, go on, enlighten us all at how many and which of the hard facts that he offered to his point (regardless of his true or most likely imagined motive) aren't true, and provide equally hard facts of your evidence of such.  It doesn't matter if Deniz and Halperin ran a train on the guy's wife to motivate him to write such a piece, the facts of it stand firm and not factually refuted by anyone so far.  Pretty sure all the sour grapes being talked about i this thread aren't actually people imagined to have been jealous that they didn't get in on this charade, but instead the people exposed when Karl Jobst started pulling down the blanket of secrecy covering how the WATA/HA sausage was really made.

[inasuma | 1,203]

24 minutes ago, darkchylde28 said:

Please, go on, enlighten us all at how many and which of the hard facts that he offered to his point (regardless of his true or most likely imagined motive) aren't true, and provide equally hard facts of your evidence of such.  It doesn't matter if Deniz and Halperin ran a train on the guy's wife to motivate him to write such a piece, the facts of it stand firm and not factually refuted by anyone so far.  Pretty sure all the sour grapes being talked about i this thread aren't actually people imagined to have been jealous that they didn't get in on this charade, but instead the people exposed when Karl Jobst started pulling down the blanket of secrecy covering how the WATA/HA sausage was really made.

I know you're really emotionally attached to the narrative Karl is giving you, but just remember, Karl Jobst isn't a journalist (and at the very least, he editorialized his facts). He gave an extremely one-sided analysis of the situation, which, even if he's right, is still absolutely dreadful reporting practice. I'm not even claiming he's right or wrong. Just that he turned himself into a target for libel.

Source: Journalist for five years 

Edit: There's a reason Karl Jobst had to take down all his Billy Mitchell videos and settle with the guy out of court when Billy sued him. Again, not saying he's wrong there either. Just that Karl Jobst clearly hasn't learned. (oops wrong guy)

Edited August 25, 2021 by inasuma

[MrWunderful | 2,927]

3 hours ago, guitarzombie said:

I would like to know how much of this his parents bought.  I mean didnt this kid have an almost CIB set by like 17?

All of it. 

[AdamW | 713]

33 minutes ago, darkchylde28 said:

I won't argue that SE and Dino Peak weren't really enjoyed by many people (by availability of exposure or the games being good), but I will argue about their "right" to sit at the top of the food chain value-wise.  An example of this in classic car circles would be a Shelby GT-500KR Mustang, a car that very few people bothered to buy, thus few enjoyed them at all compared to other examples of the car (the GT-500 or any other model of Mustang from the same model year), and yet that one tends to hold the top spot in regard to value.  Why?  Because it's rare.  Is it a great car?  Under the hood, sure, but personally (and I know I'm not alone), I believe it was ugly AF and worse than the more common, much more enjoyed and experienced examples of the vehicle.  Which, by your argument, should mean that regular 'ol classic big block Mustangs in great shape should whip the dog shit out of the GT-500KR simply because more people actually got to love them...and yet that's not the case.  In regard to collectibles, rarity is the true, lasting top dog indicator of value long term.

Bingo.  Rarity is the top indicator of value in any normal, "mature" collectibles market, simply because there are people who have to have it all, and folks of that disposition with the most money will eventually, ultimately, make the rarest items in a specific field of collectibles more expensive than everything else.

It's not that simple, though. I know zip about cars, but even still, I'd bet you there's a car rarer than this GT-500KR Mustang which is worth less. There's probably a car some guy built in his garage that there is one of. Is that car worth more? I bet not.

Why? Because a Shelby GT is a thing (even I know that), and presumably this is the rarest form of that thing. The rarity is important, but it's not everything. The thing has to be desirable in some other sense first. Pure rarity means very little in most cases.

In other words, the real trick is defining the "all" in that "people who have to have it all". Even the car collector who "has to have it all" probably does not literally want one of every car that has ever been produced, do they?

The current speculative money in video games does not believe that many more people will ever want a definition of "it all" that encompasses SE and Dinosaur Peak, than currently already do. Maybe they're wrong, but I do actually agree with them on that.

[Alder | 243]

7 minutes ago, inasuma said:

Edit: There's a reason Karl Jobst had to take down all his Billy Mitchell videos and settle with the guy out of court when Billy sued him. Again, not saying he's wrong there either. Just that Karl Jobst clearly hasn't learned.

I think you're confusing Karl with Apollo Legend.

[AdamW | 713]

39 minutes ago, darkchylde28 said:

...not really.  He reached out to them to be able to talk to them, letting them know he was investigating their business(es).  Had they responded, I'm confident Karl Jobst absolutely would have hit them up with various questions relating to the points he was making in his video.  But, they blew him off, therefore, from any reasonable journalistic perspective, he had zero additional responsibility to let them know exactly what he'd been researching, what he'd been found, etc.  If they weren't good enough to speak/meet with him in good faith at the beginning, why should he prepare them for the dirt that he's managed to dig up through various and public records after the fact?  This should be a lesson to them to take journalists up on their offers to speak when they first reach out versus burying their heads in the sand and being surprised when this type of espose drops on their doorstep.

If Karl was a professional journalist, the answer would be "because that's what journalists are supposed to do". Even if the subject blows you off on an initial vague "I'm writing a story on this area, do you want to be included?" query, if your final story is going to include a specific allegation of wrongdoing against them, you are supposed to put that specific allegation to them and offer them an opportunity to respond.

As I said earlier, Karl isn't a professional journalist, so he's not really bound by that code of ethics. But then, Deniz isn't a licensed stockbroker. I don't even know if Halperin is a licensed auctioneer (do they license auctioneers?) or just an executive. So, as I said, sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. If we're going to judge people by codes of ethics they aren't actually signed up to, we can do it to all parties, right?

[TDIRunner | 2,741]

13 minutes ago, inasuma said:

Edit: There's a reason Karl Jobst had to take down all his Billy Mitchell videos and settle with the guy out of court when Billy sued him. Again, not saying he's wrong there either. Just that Karl Jobst clearly hasn't learned.

 

Wrong guy.

[inasuma | 1,203]

3 minutes ago, TDIRunner said:

 

Wrong guy.

 

9 minutes ago, Alder said:

I think you're confusing Karl with Apollo Legend.

Oops. You're right. Wrong guy.

 

[darkchylde28 | 1,546]

3 minutes ago, AdamW said:

As I said earlier, Karl isn't a professional journalist, so he's not really bound by that code of ethics. But then, Deniz isn't a licensed stockbroker. I don't even know if Halperin is a licensed auctioneer (do they license auctioneers?) or just an executive. So, as I said, sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. If we're going to judge people by codes of ethics they aren't actually signed up to, we can do it to all parties, right?

You know, this keeps coming up, and yet Halperin was fined out the ass in the 80s to the tune of $1.2M by the FTC for doing exactly this same type of shit with coins.  Which aren't stocks, and have no legal framework around their collecting.  So, I'd say if this gets enough eyes on it, there likely will be legal repercussions down the road due to the shady, manipulative BS that's going on with these guys.  And seeing as WATA got bought by another party, they'll probably either be stuck defending them to the ends of the Earth, or cutting their losses and cutting them lose to save their own bacon.

You can't argue with the facts of the video, so you're doing everything you can to smear the author.  Go for it, roll around in it, have fun.  I think I'm pretty much done debating with anybody who can't offer up specific, provable reasons why the facts presented aren't true versus why it's very inconvenient that they're true, and why it would even matter if the author of the video (and provider of the facts/ research) had a personal agenda.  It matters not ONE iota why he did what he did, it's done, and nobody can yet be bothered to factually refute any of it.

[John198X | 55]

Finally getting a chance to watch Jobst's video. I've casually followed there Heritage / WATA saga. The market manipulation and some degree of collusion was obvious from the beginning. I mean, it was completely shameless. I pretty much wrote it all off as an artificial bubble to make rich people richer, which is still correct, but the details are even scummier than I imagined.

NA shutting down was a bummer for me. I didn't find this forum until a bit after it had started and haven't lurked too often. Even when I do, it's The Gauntlet and other play areas I keep to, just as I did on NA. I'm reading some older threads here on this topic, and it's quite a trip... A whole lot of info in Jobst's video that's been around here for years for those willing to look. This one is fun...

I'm just finding out today about the direct connection between GoCollect and WATA, among other things. That's really depressing.

 

Edited August 25, 2021 by John198X

[Brickman | 3,987]

2 minutes ago, darkchylde28 said:

You can't argue with the facts of the video, so you're doing everything you can to smear the author.  Go for it, roll around in it, have fun.  I think I'm pretty much done debating with anybody who can't offer up specific, provable reasons why the facts presented aren't true versus why it's very inconvenient that they're true, and why it would even matter if the author of the video (and provider of the facts/ research) had a personal agenda.  It matters not ONE iota why he did what he did, it's done, and nobody can yet be bothered to factually refute any of it.

Agreed, we're just going around in circles now. They know they're backed into a corner and even if they know they're wrong they'll just keep misdirecting and brining up weird non facts. Hopefully one day they'll take off their WATA/HA goggles and actually see what is right in front of them.

[AdamW | 713]

10 minutes ago, darkchylde28 said:

You know, this keeps coming up, and yet Halperin was fined out the ass in the 80s to the tune of $1.2M by the FTC for doing exactly this same type of shit with coins.  Which aren't stocks, and have no legal framework around their collecting.  So, I'd say if this gets enough eyes on it, there likely will be legal repercussions down the road due to the shady, manipulative BS that's going on with these guys.  And seeing as WATA got bought by another party, they'll probably either be stuck defending them to the ends of the Earth, or cutting their losses and cutting them lose to save their own bacon.

You can't argue with the facts of the video, so you're doing everything you can to smear the author.  Go for it, roll around in it, have fun.  I think I'm pretty much done debating with anybody who can't offer up specific, provable reasons why the facts presented aren't true versus why it's very inconvenient that they're true, and why it would even matter if the author of the video (and provider of the facts/ research) had a personal agenda.  It matters not ONE iota why he did what he did, it's done, and nobody can yet be bothered to factually refute any of it.

I'm not smearing anyone. Honestly, at this point I'm just arguing for the sake of arguing, so I should probably stop. I just tend to be sceptical of any neat narratives, like the one people want to be true here - the whole high-end gaming market is a big scam manipulated by evil WATA and HA, and this video will single-handedly pop the bubble, and you'll be able to buy SMB for 300 bucks again!

...yeah, no, that's not happening. There was an HA auction last night, even. None of the prices were off.

AFAIK, all the things cited as facts in the video are indeed true facts. Also AFAIK, none of them are particularly new to people here or to many of the people buying high end games. They do seem to be news to some newer folks I've seen in some FB and Discord groups, and it's definitely good that Karl helped make those folks aware of these issues. I'm literally telling new people who show up that they should go watch the video.

I just get off the train before we get to the part where this means everyone involved is an evil criminal scammer, and the market a complete sham. If Halperin or anyone else at HA or elsewhere is proven to have done anything criminal or otherwise sanctionable, then they should have the book thrown at them for sure.

Edited August 25, 2021 by AdamW

[WalterWhiteJr. | 1,162]

I hope Jobst video gets 1M plus views and CNN and NYT pick up the story. 

[ZeldaFreak | 3,600]

I dunno about anyone else, I'm just over here sitting on the sidelines watching the fireworks.

This whole thing is some damn good entertainment.

[Alder | 243]

1 minute ago, John198X said:

I'm just finding out today about the direct connection between GoCollect and WATA, among other things. That's really depressing.

I'm still sour about it all. I really enjoyed contributing scans and other info to the database. I don't have the money to be an archivist but I want to help preserve what I can. And now it's just gone.

[Zach | 186]

3 hours ago, guitarzombie said:

I would like to know how much of this his parents bought.  I mean didnt this kid have an almost CIB set by like 17?

Yeah I never understood that either. I actually asked him before how the hell did he get such a huge collection as a teenager and his response was "by getting up early and hitting the garage sales and flea markets!" lol give me a break 

Definitely something weird going on there

[Gloves | 11,783]

3 minutes ago, Zach said:

Yeah I never understood that either. I actually asked him before how the hell did he get such a huge collection as a teenager and his response was "by getting up early and hitting the garage sales and flea markets!" lol give me a break 

Definitely something weird going on there

Video games were what, like $2-5 a pop at the time? It's not unheard of for a 15 year old to have a paper route or whatever. It's conceivable that on a part time job you could go to Yard sales in the 2000s and buy games regularly at what we'd today consider to be incredible steals.