Heritage Auctions Thread

[OptOut | 8,884]

3 minutes ago, Gulag Joe said:

"Building a bubble" is market manipulation. Market manipulation is a crime. A whole bunch of people got in trouble a few years back by breaking the law by building a bubble that caused the entire world to go into a recession. 2008 wasn't that long ago.

Jim Halperin says hi.

[CodysGameRoom | 2,008]

Just now, arch_8ngel said:

Naming a private citizen, who you haven't received any permission from, in a massively public video of generally negative tone definitely fits my definition of "being dragged into it".

Your opinion I guess. He certainly didn't accuse him of a crime like some here are painting it to be like. He was used in context to show possible shady practices from WATA. 

[arch_8ngel | 1,597]

5 minutes ago, Gulag Joe said:

"Building a bubble" is market manipulation. Market manipulation is a crime. A whole bunch of people got in trouble a few years back by breaking the law by building a bubble that caused the entire world to go into a recession. 2008 wasn't that long ago.

Do you live in a different timeline?  Almost nobody got in trouble for 2008...

[BriGuy82 | 768]

13 minutes ago, arch_8ngel said:

 

 

This is ultimate-Hanlon's-razer going on.

Lol! I missed shit like this. I really did. You're such a smarty pants. Let me go Google what this even means.

[Californication | 1,477]

26 minutes ago, arch_8ngel said:

We're in a reality where people are paying hundreds-of-dollars-per-share for Gamestop and whatever silly money AMC is going for right now, amongst a dozen other meme-stock contenders  -- the world is full of idiots right now who clearly have more money than sense.

Zero surprise to me, at all, that it spills over to a mania in collectibles.  (just look at sports cards with the store-stockers being stalked/harassed on their store runs)

 

This is ultimate-Hanlon's-razer going on.

Mmm leaving out all the pump and dump meme stocks, there is a strategy for AMC and GME, the fact that the strategy is disconnected from it's fundamentals does not discredit it.

[arch_8ngel | 1,597]

Just now, Californication said:

Mmm leaving out all the pump and dump meme stocks, there is a strategy for AMC and GME, the fact that the strategy is disconnected from it's fundamentals does not discredit it.

Remains to be seen.

And whether there is, or there isn't, something legitimate to encourage some intelligent people to get into those two in particular -- the VAST MAJORITY of people buying them don't know anything about anything with respect to investing.

Point is -- there is an epidemic of irrationality right now, across the board, and it is no surprise to me, at all, that it spilled over into sealed games.

[osg | 52]

6 minutes ago, arch_8ngel said:

Naming a private citizen, who you haven't received any permission from, in a massively public video of generally negative tone definitely fits my definition of "being dragged into it".

(quoting arch for old times' sake-- not meant a a direct reply to this particular post-- more a reply to some recent comments in general)

Oh boy, journalism law is my favorite! Is Dain a Private Citizen or a Public Figure? Someone can be considered a public figure if they are "famous" enough, even if they don't want to be, even within a narrow band of interest. Merely discussing a person on the internet to a sufficient level can make someone a public figure. It's basically just anyone with pervasive notoriety. This is the part where whoever is reading this comment has to decide for themselves if this is the case.

Now the fun part; if you are a public figure, and you want to sue for libel or defamation, you have to prove that the accused acted with malice, with clear evidence they knowingly stated a falsehood or recklessly ignored the truth. To be clear, whether the capital T Truth was actually published itself is not important when suing for damages. Only that the accused knew the truth and ignored it, or was extremely careless with the truth. This is the part where whoever is reading this comment has to decide for themselves if this is the case.

 

But OSG, you might be saying, how can anyone sue for injury to reputation, if merely being defamed might make you a public figure?

 

 

LATER NERDS

[Gulag Joe | 582]

57 minutes ago, CodysGameRoom said:

Weird. You DO understand it. So it's willful ignorance then? 

The whole "the video doesn't accuse anybody of committing any crimes" crowd is now suddenly saying it is!

[the_wizard_666 | 1,325]

7 minutes ago, Gulag Joe said:

The whole "the video doesn't accuse anybody of committing any crimes" crowd is now suddenly saying it is!

He's not saying the video doesn't accuse ANYBODY.  He's saying it's not accusing Dain, and I would argue Jeff either, just stating that there's a possibility that they may have known something was up.  In Dain's case, I doubt that's true, can't speak for Jeff but it's likely not either, but speculation does NOT equate to accusation. 

[arch_8ngel | 1,597]

41 minutes ago, osg said:

 

Oh boy, journalism law is my favorite! Is Dain a Private Citizen or a Public Figure? Someone can be considered a public figure if they are "famous" enough, even if they don't want to be, even within a narrow band of interest. Merely discussing a person on the internet to a sufficient level can make someone a public figure. It's basically just anyone with pervasive notoriety. This is the part where whoever is reading this comment has to decide for themselves if this is the case.

 

Would be an interesting question for our resident lawyers.

I had the distinct impression you had to inject yourself into the situation to become an involuntary public figure (which Dain has certainly attempted to stay well clear of).  Though it may be a fair argument that his long-time involvement as the head of NAge gave him the status, by default, in context.

 

Still -- if I were him, I'd be a bit annoyed, at the very least.

Edited August 26, 2021 by arch_8ngel

[ExplodedHamster | 404]

Oh Jesus. I think there’s a four pronged test to determine if someone is a public figure? Lol taking me back a decade. NYT V Sullivan, I think.

[AdamW | 713]

2 hours ago, CodysGameRoom said:

Dain was or is part of WATA. 

Jeff was or is part of WATA. 

Watch the video.

 

Edit: I'm really curious how many of those super critical of this video haven't actually watched the whole thing.

So I finally gave up and watched the whole thing (for context, I almost never watch anything on youtube, and this is the first time I've watched anything longer than ten minutes that wasn't a speedrun...)

These were my takeaways:

The first 23 minutes just reports things people said in public under their own names with all relevant disclaimers. It's useful background knowledge for people coming in fresh, though. There is, I think, one inaccuracy I caught here, which probably isn't really Karl's fault but could be corrected: he claims WATA's 2% charge on high value items means the charge for a $1,000,000 game would be $20,000. I believe it's been clarified recently that this charge is capped at a value of $100,000, so a charge of $2,000 - WATA charges $2,000 if your game is valued at $100,000 or higher. It doesn't charge $20,000 on a $1,000,000 game. I don't believe WATA's site actually states this, though, so it's reasonable for Karl not to have known it, but if it's confirmed, he could update the video as it does seem like a significant difference. I didn't like that the video kept flashing "MARKET MANIPULATION ALERT" over this stuff, when for me, none of it gets close to the level of "market manipulation", per the discussion yesterday. "Manipulation" generally involves some level of outright objective factual misrepresentation and/or identity concealment. Nothing in this whole 23 minutes is that.

The shill bid story from around 23-28 minutes is one of the most significant allegations in the whole thing, but it's also the vaguest. It's a guy reporting what his dad told him about what Jim Halperin did with comic sales. Is it possible that it's true? Sure. Is it possible he's done the same with games? Sure. But lots of things are possible, and it'd be a lot juicier if there were any actual proof, or even if the father were at least willing to go on the public record and make the accusations himself. As it stands, it's hearsay. Also, I think it's reasonable for @ExplodedHamsterto chime in on this, because the video uses the sale of his SM64 as background while speculating that Jim could be "selling" his own games to himself. In the case of that SM64 sale, we know that's not true.

The "Carolina Collection" stuff seems like the most solid part of the whole video, to me. Per the dates above and the date on the press release WATA put out, the dates on the SEC filings and the date Jeff gave himself for leaving WATA (January 2020), it seems definitely true that Jeff was involved with WATA at the time the Carolina Collection was graded, and that is definitely bad, especially given Deniz's statement that employees couldn't have games graded. In a legal context they could wordsmith about whether Jeff was an "employee", and probably even win, but any reasonable person would I think expect that policy to cover people in Jeff's apparent position. Per the dates on the SEC filings, Dain was no longer involved with WATA at the time the Carolina Collection thing happened, so it doesn't seem fair to drag him into that. This stuff was known to people here for a while, I think, but it's definitely important information and probably a lot of people weren't aware of it.

I did have a couple of minor nitpicks with that section - Karl cites a blog post Jeff wrote in May 2020 and specifically claims that Jeff was a director of WATA at that date, without evidence. The only evidence he cited in the section was the SEC filing, which only shows Jeff was a director in 2018, not in 2020, so he should not have made that claim, and if Jeff is telling the truth about leaving in January 2020, it was a false claim. That's a pretty minor mistake, though.

The other minor nitpick is that the Carolina Collection thing seems to be the only case which Karl actually suggests rises to the level of "fraud", to support the big splashy title of the video ("FRAUD and DECEPTION"). This is based on the idea that having "Carolina Collection" on the label would increase the value of the game, which isn't really supported. He could, for instance, have tried to build a case that "Carolina Collection" games sell for more than other copies of the same games in the same grade, but he didn't. To me, you'd have to demonstrate that in order to claim it rises to the level of fraud.

The stuff about grading being subjective is all true, but also fairly well known stuff. On its own it's kind of a yawn. The point about over-generous seal grades is a solid one and well-supported, and WATA ought to either fix that or fix their claimed scale.

The coin boom stuff is useful context and history and definitely worth knowing, but it is also of course not news. It's all sourced from old newspaper articles and wikipedia pages. Again, good information for people to have, though, especially in forming an opinion of Jim Halperin. The FTC considering over-grading to be potentially a "deceptive and unfair" practice is a good point and one to keep in mind, though again, I think he was slightly inaccurate in this section. He referred to Halperin and Ivy being "found guilty", but they weren't. They agreed to settle a (non-criminal, I think) case. That's a very different legal scenario; the difference matters a lot in law, maybe less in the court of public opinion.

Around 44:30 he cites an entirely unfounded rumor - literally just briefly shows a snippet of an unattributed forum or Twitter post - that Halperin provided the funding for WATA, which to me is sloppy. If all you've got is a completely unsupported rumor, don't cite it. Get more, or leave it out.

The stuff on population reports, sure. Everyone wants population reports. Again, not new, but useful for new people.

One thing I found interesting throughout the video is that he continually harps on articles that cite Deniz and/or Jim as authorities, but he never questions the role of journalists who keep just asking Deniz and Jim for quotes and then running them without any opposing view or context. Shouldn't the media come in for a bit of criticism here? This is something I've always thought. Yeah, Deniz and Jim have obvious motives to try and pump up the market. This is not something they've ever hidden. Deniz talks about how he believes the market should be way bigger than it was in 2017 at literally every opportunity anyone gives him, and he does it under his own name with his own role prominently stated. It's fine to have an opinion over whether it's a good idea for the head of a grading company to act that way, though I mean, in a way it'd be weird to found a grading company for something you didn't believe should be worth a lot of money, right? To me, the bigger issue is, shouldn't journalists be digging into the scene a little more? This was the take I also had on the dentist story. The dentist guy didn't write the article. He didn't claim he was a purist avid video game collector, or anything. On the contrary, he's always been entirely open about being an investor. It's the author of the article who called him an 'avid video game collector' and all that stuff. Any blame there seems to attach to the journalist, but Karl never seems to call this out at all. The whole video features lots of articles which refer to "collectors" when they're really talking about investors, but again, that's a failing of the journalists, but Karl never seems to mention this.

Finally, at the end of the video, he does a brief bit on the sealed market allegedly affecting non-sealed prices, but does not really support this at all. All he does is say that non-sealed prices have gone up. Well, sure they have, but that doesn't mean it's caused by the high-end sealed market. You'd at least need to acknowledge and try to parse out the pandemic effect on the prices of absolutely everything to prove that case, but Karl doesn't even try to do that; the video actually shows an article that mentions the pandemic, but Karl never does. As others have pointed out, he shows listings of SM64 carts at high prices, but not sales. It's very easy to search eBay sold listings.

My overall impression is pretty much unchanged. Halperin clearly has some shady form. There's no actual proof in the video of him doing anything shady around video games, but you'd have to be naive not to acknowledge the possibility. Deniz has never acted as an impartial information broker, but he's never at all tried to conceal this (rather the opposite), which means I don't really have that much of a problem with him doing it. It does of course increase my general scepticism around WATA. The overall thrust of the video - that there's a lot of speculative activity around the high-end sealed market, that most people involved in it aren't old-school video game collectors but investors, and that a small group of people were involved in the founding of WATA and some early big sales and HA getting involved in game sales - is true, but again not really news, and doesn't really press my "outrage" button. People are allowed to speculate on assets, it's always gonna happen, and nobody else is required to get involved if they don't want to be. It's definitely information that's worth knowing, though, and it's good for Karl to put it out there. I do disagree with his reference to "FRAUD and DECEPTION in the retro video game market" in the titling of the video, as I don't think he actually definitively proved any fraud or even much "deception", certainly not in the criminal sense. It's possible that some happened, but this video doesn't prove any of it.

I'm not really on board with much outrage about most of this stuff, especially not the "evil speculators taking over our hobby" outrage angle, for reasons people have already cited. The True Video Game Collectors who hang out here mostly aren't collectors of high grade sealed Mario games, and this whole speculative possibly-a-bubble is happening in high graded sealed Mario games and similar. Maybe there are a very few people who just wanted really nice clean sealed copies of Mario and Pokemon and Zelda games for their shelves and somehow hadn't got around to buying them for 20 years. OK, I feel vaguely sorry for those people, but hey, if this is a big bubble, all they have to do is wait a few years and the problem will solve itself. If you're not into that stuff, just keep buying CIBs or carts. Yeah, prices on those are up since the pandemic, but I don't buy that this is the fault of the big money speculators, honestly.

[AdamW | 713]

1 hour ago, CodysGameRoom said:

Wrong. Watch the video. He's simply stating that if WATA has a policy of employees not grading or owning graded games from them, but then are actually allowing it, that it is wrong. He never said anything about a crime.

He said the Carolina Collection stuff is potentially "fraud". Fraud is a crime.

[osg | 52]

18 minutes ago, arch_8ngel said:

Still -- if I were him, I'd be a bit annoyed, at the very least.

For sure. I've met Dain and I liked the guy-- really super dude. I am comfortable publicly wishing him the best. He's basically just a footnote in the video but I can only imagine he figured he was, you know, done with the whole collecting scene.

The other side of the coin is I don't think Karl Jobst has to worry about being successfully sued by anyone mentioned in the video. He might get served by someone anyway though! That's just how legal teams do.

Just to add that Karl has, in the past, done corrections videos and even corrects small details, so he might do the same here if things are brought to his attention.

[CodysGameRoom | 2,008]

14 minutes ago, AdamW said:

a lot.

Thanks for actually watching the video. I know you said your position is unchanged and that's fine but at least you're qualified to comment on the contents of the video. I agree with most of your assessment as well.

[CodysGameRoom | 2,008]

7 minutes ago, osg said:

The other side of the coin is I don't think Karl Jobst has to worry about being successfully sued by anyone mentioned in the video. He might get served by someone anyway though! That's just how legal teams do.

Curious to see if anything happens there, but from my understanding, he's in Australia, which could complicate things.

[MrWunderful | 2,927]

For clarity, I was the one (one of the ones?) willing to buy NA with an offer of $5000.00. 
 

@B.A. and I scheduled a call with Jeff to discuss it (among many emails back and forth) and he straight ghosted us, and then completely stopped responding. 
 

@Gloves and I had started to develop a plan for updating NA to a modern site. 
 

Total Bitch move, and no matter what happens with any of the SEC shit or whatever, I will still see him as a greedy, money grubbing prick. At least kiss us on the mouth before you pound us out in the back of your car before ditching us on a fire road. 
 

A simple “no thanks” or “im looking for more money” would have sufficed. 

Edited August 26, 2021 by MrWunderful

[Ozzy_98 | 55]

4 hours ago, ExplodedHamster said:

 it appears Dain has been legitimately/legally slandered.

I'm not taking sides, and I dislike how people seem to have teams; once you pick a team, you stop listening to the other side generally, and over-inflate small bits of info to make your team seem better. That said, a bit of info here.

For it to qualify as legal slander in the US, it would need to be spoken, since this was broadcast, it would be libel. Libel would be very tough to get when the one saying the comments is in another country, he would just about have to show up in America to be served. (And didn't Heritage say on twitter he should contact them, and come view the site?)

What, exactly, was untrue that he said? Speculation is not libel, old SEC filings that never amounted to anything wouldn't qualify. 

And then there's the argument, does Heritage qualify as a public figure, and if so, that would mean in US law actual malice needs to be shown. Actual malice in this case means 1) knowing the statements are false, or 2) reckless disregard for the truth. These are VERY hard to prove.

I think Australia follows UKs MUCH stricter libel laws, so if they had a registered business there, they would have a much better case.

Unless something he said was plainly false, and he doesn't correct it, I don't see how he could have been considered libel, *EXCEPT* his intro and thumbnail are crossing a line in my eyes. If you skip past the first 5 or so mins, it's better. But meh, he's always been a drama queen.  

And yes, I still talk this way.  And yes, most people here will assume things about my post and assume I'm on one side or the other, and I fully know no one would ever bother asking me to explain what I mean if they misread it.  And no, I'm not staying long, I actually swung by for reasons OTHER than this drama  Also, <insert generic penis joke here>

 

 

 

[BriGuy82 | 768]

3 minutes ago, MrWunderful said:

 

At least kiss us on the mouth before you pound us out in the back of your car before ditching us on a fire road. 

 

Does this offer still stand? 

[docile tapeworm | 4,198]

9 minutes ago, BriGuy82 said:

Does this offer still stand? 

there you go all around town again... my God man...

Edited August 26, 2021 by docile tapeworm

[MiamiSlice | 3,095]

2 hours ago, Gulag Joe said:

"Building a bubble" is market manipulation. Market manipulation is a crime. A whole bunch of people got in trouble a few years back by breaking the law by building a bubble that caused the entire world to go into a recession. 2008 wasn't that long ago.

I hate to be pedantic but there's a lot wrong here. 

1. Market manipulation is only a crime in regulated markets. It specifically concerns securities (like stocks). Collectibles are not regulated, neither are precious metals. You can try to manipulate the gold, crypto or collectibles markets all you want, you will not be breaking the law by doing so. 

2. The 2008 crime you are referring to is fraud, specifically mortgage fraud, not market manipulation. It was all laid out in The Big Short. People were straight up lying about the value and risk of the mortgages that they were bundling. Regulators were turning a blind eye to it while it was happening. The bubble burst when the holders of those mortgage bonds realized their investments were much riskier (more junk) thank they were initially led to believe. 

3. Hardly anyone went to jail for what happened in 2008. Pretty sure it was like 1 person at 1 firm. 

To date the only possible crime that Wata / HA might have committed is false advertising, and even that is very specious and would be very difficult to prove. Anything else that people are alleging due to Karl's video and the rumors is either a) not a crime or b) not credible based on the evidence. 

[Generic | 215]

14 minutes ago, Ozzy_98 said:

Also, <insert generic penis joke here>

 

 

 

 

[MiamiSlice | 3,095]

17 minutes ago, Ozzy_98 said:

I'm not taking sides, and I dislike how people seem to have teams; once you pick a team, you stop listening to the other side generally, and over-inflate small bits of info to make your team seem better. That said, a bit of info here.

For it to qualify as legal slander in the US, it would need to be spoken, since this was broadcast, it would be libel. Libel would be very tough to get when the one saying the comments is in another country, he would just about have to show up in America to be served. (And didn't Heritage say on twitter he should contact them, and come view the site?)

What, exactly, was untrue that he said? Speculation is not libel, old SEC filings that never amounted to anything wouldn't qualify. 

And then there's the argument, does Heritage qualify as a public figure, and if so, that would mean in US law actual malice needs to be shown. Actual malice in this case means 1) knowing the statements are false, or 2) reckless disregard for the truth. These are VERY hard to prove.

I think Australia follows UKs MUCH stricter libel laws, so if they had a registered business there, they would have a much better case.

Unless something he said was plainly false, and he doesn't correct it, I don't see how he could have been considered libel, *EXCEPT* his intro and thumbnail are crossing a line in my eyes. If you skip past the first 5 or so mins, it's better. But meh, he's always been a drama queen.  

Quick googling brought me to this: https://gordonlegal.com.au/services/defamation-privacy-law/defamation-law-in-australia-a-quick-guide/

Looks like if Karl is in Australia then Heritage / Wata would have to sue him in Australian court.... It's very hard for companies to claim defamation... They could sue for malicious falsehood but pretty much impossible to claim Karl is being malicious and that it will hurt their business... They'd have a much better chance of suing as individuals since Karl named specific people in the video... Who knows, maybe Deniz or someone else will sue him. It could happen. 

[MrWunderful | 2,927]

26 minutes ago, BriGuy82 said:

Does this offer still stand? 

A kiss might not be needed depending on whos asking. Some venmo cash for an uber might be nice though. 

[captmorgandrinker | 1,649]

5 minutes ago, MrWunderful said:

A kiss might not be needed depending on whos asking. Some venmo cash for an uber might be nice though. 

(starts car)