Heritage Auctions Thread

[Brickman | 3,983]

1 minute ago, Jeevan said:

Yes, since they are in the same "parent" company now   

Gottim' bois!!!!!!!   Where my @OptOut at?

[GPX | 1,369]

Here’s my honest take on the situation and a summary of what I took out of Karl’s video:

- the arguments on here I’m seeing are 2 separate groups arguing on 2 angles. One group is looking at individual acts and trying to dismantle it from individual statements made in the video. The other group is looking at it from its totality. So while no conclusive evidence of fraud is going on with these individual acts and can be described as “shady” at best, if you add up all the shady acts, over the last 2-3 years, it gives you a fairer gauge of the level of shadiness going on, and that there is market manipulation behind the scenes of this current “bubble”.

- Karl is one gutsy fella. The collecting community needed someone with a large fan base to do a thorough questioning on “WTF is going on with the video games market?” Most of the YouTube videos in the past either accept the price rise as a normality, or they simply bash HA/WATA without having any concrete arguments behind their knocks on the companies. I commend him for his bravery!

- a “board member” should well be seen as an “employee”. If anything, they have the power to guide the ethics of any company. So keeping silent on Jeff being a board member whilst promoting transparency “employees can’t get their games graded” IS a BIG misrepresentation of the situation. 

- I believe Karl isn’t just targeting WATA or HA, but he’s mentioned also the journalists likely being in collusion, Pawn Stars, and a fair chunk of mentioning and showing footages of the dentist guy and his group of buddies. There is a grand plan going on, and the puzzles are still trying to be figured out.

[the_wizard_666 | 1,325]

47 minutes ago, Gulag Joe said:

Don't know if any of you have been paying any attention, but factory sealed VHS tapes from the 80s and 90s are exploding in price right now. I wonder if it's Dirty Wata and the Boys messing around with that market, too.

Hmm...I've got a few...maybe I should get in before the bubble bursts on that market...

Naw, fuck it.  Too lazy.

[T-Pac | 7,534]

[CodysGameRoom | 2,008]

Yep, funny how that works isn't it...

[avatar! | 1,809]

Not inspired by this thread, but coincidentally I started reading this classic book

Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_Popular_Delusions_and_the_Madness_of_Crowds

 

[AdamW | 713]

27 minutes ago, GPX said:

- I believe Karl isn’t just targeting WATA or HA, but he’s mentioned also the journalists likely being in collusion, Pawn Stars, and a fair chunk of mentioning and showing footages of the dentist guy and his group of buddies. There is a grand plan going on, and the puzzles are still trying to be figured out.

I really think people are overplaying the Grand Conspiracy angle here. It doesn't need to be that smart. The basic ingredients are as simple as: a handful of people who reckon, by analogy with comics and trading cards, that there could be a high end market for sealed video games. If you're someone like that in 2017, and you want to make some money...well, what do high-end collectible markets have? They have a grading agency, so hey, guess we need one of those. They have sales through an auction house, so let's call everyone's favorite highly reputable auctioneer, Jim. And they have publicity. Well, everyone's favourite auctioneer Jim, who's been in the business for what, 40+ years?, knows how to put out a press release, and probably knows a few journalists.

I mean, that's it. That's all the entire "conspiracy" needs to be. The plan doesn't need to be any grander than that. Pawn Stars is a "reality" show. They like content. This is content. Journalism these days ain't what it was in the 20th century, and there are enough sites out there that will run a story based on a press release and a couple of quotes without doing any actual, you know, journalizin'. It's not really rocket science. The journalists don't need to be "in on it". They can just be lazy journalists who just wanted some clicks. "Mario game sells for lots of money" gets clicks.

The dentist guy doesn't need to be a part of any grand conspiracy. I mean, he told his story. He sees collectibles as an investment. He was looking at comics on HA and he saw video games start showing up, and thought "huh, this looks interesting, I'll get in on the ground floor". That's all the other "masterminds" here need, after all. They don't need the buyers to be co-conspirators. It's better for them if they aren't, because it's, you know, not potentially illegal and stuff. HA is a huge site, where lots of people like the dentist buy stuff. All that needed to happen was for one or two of those people to decide they like the looks of this video game market, at least for a short run, and get in at the "beginning" (as they see it).

[Jeevan | 8,910]

10 minutes ago, AdamW said:

They have a grading agency, so hey, guess we need one of those.

Wasn't VGA around? 

So they had that already??????  Why not just use them?

10 minutes ago, AdamW said:

They have sales through an auction house, so let's call everyone's favorite highly reputable auctioneer, Jim.

@Shmup @OptOut Gottim'

Edit:  @AdamW were u saying that that is the conspiracy, sorry i might have misunderstood.....

[AdamW | 713]

there may have been a light frosting of sarcasm on that description

[avatar! | 1,809]

10 minutes ago, AdamW said:

I really think people are overplaying the Grand Conspiracy angle here. It doesn't need to be that smart. The basic ingredients are as simple as: a handful of people who reckon, by analogy with comics and trading cards, that there could be a high end market for sealed video games. If you're someone like that in 2017, and you want to make some money...well, what do high-end collectible markets have? They have a grading agency, so hey, guess we need one of those. They have sales through an auction house, so let's call everyone's favorite highly reputable auctioneer, Jim. And they have publicity. Well, everyone's favourite auctioneer Jim, who's been in the business for what, 40+ years?, knows how to put out a press release, and probably knows a few journalists.

I mean, that's it. That's all the entire "conspiracy" needs to be. The plan doesn't need to be any grander than that. Pawn Stars is a "reality" show. They like content. This is content. Journalism these days ain't what it was in the 20th century, and there are enough sites out there that will run a story based on a press release and a couple of quotes without doing any actual, you know, journalizin'. It's not really rocket science. The journalists don't need to be "in on it". They can just be lazy journalists who just wanted some clicks. "Mario game sells for lots of money" gets clicks.

The dentist guy doesn't need to be a part of any grand conspiracy. I mean, he told his story. He sees collectibles as an investment. He was looking at comics on HA and he saw video games start showing up, and thought "huh, this looks interesting, I'll get in on the ground floor". That's all the other "masterminds" here need, after all. They don't need the buyers to be co-conspirators. It's better for them if they aren't, because it's, you know, not potentially illegal and stuff. HA is a huge site, where lots of people like the dentist buy stuff. All that needed to happen was for one or two of those people to decide they like the looks of this video game market, at least for a short run, and get in at the "beginning" (as they see it).

What's the difference between a "grand conspiracy" and a normal conspiracy? Seems like WATA and HA have conspired to artificially drive prices up and create a demand for their graded games - so that definitely falls under "conspiracy". Sure, they're not planning on physically assaulting anyone (well, maybe Karl and even if this conspiracy is not unlawful, it sure is unethical at the least. Also, as for the "dentist guy", I think he was mentioned because WATA or HA or someone called him something like "a great video game collector" and Karl noted that how clearly misleading that was. In fact, it seems like WATA/HA have been misleading us for the past couple of years...

[AdamW | 713]

2 minutes ago, avatar! said:

What's the difference between a "grand conspiracy" and a normal conspiracy? Seems like WATA and HA have conspired to artificially drive prices up and create a demand for their graded games - so that definitely falls under "conspiracy". Sure, they're not planning on physically assaulting anyone (well, maybe Karl and even if this conspiracy is not unlawful, it sure is unethical at the least. Also, as for the "dentist guy", I think he was mentioned because WATA or HA or someone called him something like "a great video game collector" and Karl noted that how clearly misleading that was. In fact, it seems like WATA/HA have been misleading us for the past couple of years...

The difference is just that it doesn't need to be that big and not every last person needs to have been "in on it". I was mainly focusing on this bit of GPX's post:

"I believe Karl isn’t just targeting WATA or HA, but he’s mentioned also the journalists likely being in collusion, Pawn Stars, and a fair chunk of mentioning and showing footages of the dentist guy and his group of buddies. There is a grand plan going on, and the puzzles are still trying to be figured out."

I don't think we're gonna find any receipts that the dentist, an assortment of game journalists, and the producers of Pawn Stars are also silent partners in WATA, or something like that. As I said, it doesn't need to be that big or that smart.

[Zach | 186]

I just checked the WATA Facebook page to see if they responded or made any statements, and they didn't, but there's TONS of comments of people complaining that they've sent games in to be graded months and months ago and never got them back. People seem pretty pissed off. Lots of photos of people receive low quality, cracked and broken acrylic cases too. So in addition to being scammers, they're also just an all around crappy company 

 

 

Edited August 26, 2021 by Zach

[ZeldaFreak | 3,600]

I've been very much sitting on the sidelines of this whole thing and plan on continuing to do so, as I don't feel it's in my place to comment on any of these happenings, especially as things are still developing. But, with that said, to whom it may concern, Dain did just recently make these posts in the VGS Discord:

Judging by the third post, it sounds like he might've contacted Karl to give his own perspective on things. (Don't know if that was already known or not, only been skimming this thread)

Credit to @Jeevan for telling me about this, as I don't frequent the VGS DC these days so I wouldn't have known.

[Zach | 186]

[AdamW | 713]

11 minutes ago, Zach said:

I just checked the WATA Facebook page to see if they responded or made any statements, and they didn't, but there's TONS of comments of people complaining that they've sent games in to be graded months and months ago and never got them back. People seem pretty pissed off. Lots of photos of people receive low quality, cracked and broken acrylic cases too. So in addition to being scammers, they're also just an all around crappy company 

 

 

oh, they've been stupid backed-up for months. I doubt they spend much time crying about it, though, since people just won't stop sending them games, no matter how much they (effectively) raise prices (by closing off lower-priced tiers) and raise turnaround estimates. I wish I had their troubles.

[ICrappedMyPants | 302]

27 minutes ago, ZeldaFreak said:

I've been very much sitting on the sidelines of this whole thing and plan on continuing to do so, as I don't feel it's in my place to comment on any of these happenings, especially as things are still developing. But, with that said, to whom it may concern, Dain did just recently make these posts in the VGS Discord:

Judging by the third post, it sounds like he might've contacted Karl to give his own perspective on things. (Don't know if that was already known or not, only been skimming this thread)

Credit to @Jeevan for telling me about this, as I don't frequent the VGS DC these days so I wouldn't have known.

I don’t doubt that Dain saying that he left, but those aren’t amended SEC filings. They are different issuances of unregistered securities and show the relevant parties of the company at time of the issuance.

An amended filing will say it is an amendment. I do SEC filings for a living.

Edit: Look at item 7 in these filings. They are all new, never did they select amended.

Edited August 26, 2021 by ICrappedMyPants

[MrWunderful | 2,927]

Do companies confident in their innocence hire million dollar PR firms? Asking for a friend. 

[ExplodedHamster | 404]

1 hour ago, GPX said:

 

- a “board member” should well be seen as an “employee”. If anything, they have the power to guide the ethics of any company. So keeping silent on Jeff being a board member whilst promoting transparency “employees can’t get their games graded” IS a BIG misrepresentation of the situation. 

See, this is something that came up years ago I have a fundamental disagreement with. Advisory board members are not employees. It is common in business, particularly with startups, to have advisory board members who are business partners and participate in the business. Mark Cuban, for example, can be an advisory board member for items he sells in his sports arena, and be a large customer of those businesses. That’s totally normal.
 

This is kind of where a grading company is a bit unique. So much can be subjectively construed as biased that it’s probably best to just not have official advisory boards. 

 

Edited August 26, 2021 by ExplodedHamster

[YOURTURN | 1,256]

Since nothing I can say will be seen as relevant, I will shrink it down to three points. 

- Point #1: https://forum.rebelscum.com/threads/cas-grading-company-and-ken-black.1134869/

Alex Baha (Hoth_My_Fav) wrote that as part of his pro-AFA crusade. At no point what-so-ever did he respond to what Ross Barr (current: CAS chief) had asked or said to him. Ross also doubled down and made an effort to quell all libel claims, which primarily involved Ken Black and his failed auction house. For the sake of both CAS and Ken's victims.

If Karl was wrong with most/all the things he said, a rep. that is allowed to investigate the claims should have been in contact with Karl. Not the other way around. And instead of saying they would 'correct' Karl, they should have said they will remove those who gave any claims against all three companies validity (regardless of degree).

- Point #2: https://www.starwarsforum.co.uk/threads/new-grading-company-collector-archive-services-cas.31958/

Never use an alias in a different forum as a means to promote said libel. In this case a "GalenErso" chose to conveniently promote what Alex wrote. His second (and last) post had him take a defensive stance while claiming they are two different people. Despite the fact that both were willing to dismiss AFA's very own history.

- LINK #2: https://forums.radioreference.com/threads/looking-for-help-with-scanning-usa-magazine-alex-blaha.356428/

Ian_C, who is also a member of Rebescum.com, ended up investigating Alex Baha. Atop of this, he also brought up Alex's acts to those who are (still) members of that forum. But like his own topic, Alex treated things he deemed "irrelevant" as something he does not need to respond to. Ha, and not Wata or GoCollect, is having me see similar patterns here.

That is all I can say. And will note that I have a long history of being slandered online. Which is why I am trying to not make any emotional conclusions in regards to this situation.

[Ozzy_98 | 55]

2 hours ago, ExplodedHamster said:

Curious which parts, specifically, you think would break regulations? Investors can utilize the service, provided they aren’t on the floor grading or overseeing it, I’d think. The Pawn Stars thing I highly doubt breaks any regulations, no matter one’s opinion. Board members participating and promoting their businesses in conjunction with another company is pretty standard stuff. 

I suppose it’s difficult if we can’t find the regulations lol.

But put it this way: We know live in a world where one parent company owns two of the biggest grading companies in the world (PSA and WATA), and one of the biggest auction companies in the world (Goldin). How strict can these things be?

Well, some of it was mentioned in the video.

But auctions themselves are regulated at a state level, not federal. 49 states follow roughly the same code. But that's mostly for laws. The FTC is the one who makes regulations, and as someone who worked with\for the government for 10 years (I'm free and no longer have an NDA! woo!) I can tell you they regulate EVERYTHING. Fuckin' reverse proxy requirement bullshit my ass.

Anyways, Heritage Auctions, and more directly their founder, got in trouble once before. Here's from FTC's 1989 filings, sorry I couldn't find TEXT, but have a picture. In a nut shell, the auction houses were misleading customers about the value of the coins,and were fined. This is the exact same auction house, exact same people, being talked about again. 

And remember, just because someones doing something for a while, doesn't mean its legal. Ma Bell (May the bitch rest in pieces) owned everyone's telephone for years, there was no other phone company. Then they finally got broken up in the 80s. Same thing could very well happen here. It's not what the law says, it's what the enforcers of the law think it says. 

[MiamiSlice | 3,089]

50 minutes ago, avatar! said:

What's the difference between a "grand conspiracy" and a normal conspiracy? Seems like WATA and HA have conspired to artificially drive prices up and create a demand for their graded games - so that definitely falls under "conspiracy".

What do you expect Wata and HA to do? Tell people not to buy graded games? Claim they are worth less than what people are paying? What everyone is calling “market manipulation” is basically marketing and hyping an opportunity. Unless they were actually engaging in shill bids or fake sales, which there’s no evidence of. 

It’s no different than CGC hyping up a hot comic book or Beckett hyping up a hot trading card. For goodness sake. They literally exist to do what everyone is saying is scummy behavior. You can say you don’t like that without acting like it’s a punishable crime!

[MiamiSlice | 3,089]

19 minutes ago, MrWunderful said:

Do companies confident in their innocence hire million dollar PR firms? Asking for a friend. 

The PR firm works for PSA. They became Wata’s firm when PSA bought Wata. This happened before Karl’s allegations hit YouTube. 

[avatar! | 1,809]

3 minutes ago, MiamiSlice said:

What do you expect Wata and HA to do? Tell people not to buy graded games? Claim they are worth less than what people are paying? What everyone is calling “market manipulation” is basically marketing and hyping an opportunity. Unless they were actually engaging in shill bids or fake sales, which there’s no evidence of. 

It’s no different than CGC hyping up a hot comic book or Beckett hyping up a hot trading card. For goodness sake. They literally exist to do what everyone is saying is scummy behavior. You can say you don’t like that without acting like it’s a punishable crime!

Watch the video again. There is absolutely evidence for shill bidding! People from WATA listing the game (SMB), then someone within the company purchasing it for big bucks, then reselling it to another acquaintance/colleague for bigger bucks... all the while getting press releases!  I don't know if this is legal or not, but ethical it is not and manipulative it sure is!

[Ozzy_98 | 55]

47 minutes ago, ZeldaFreak said:

I've been very much sitting on the sidelines of this whole thing and plan on continuing to do so, as I don't feel it's in my place to comment on any of these happenings, especially as things are still developing. But, with that said, to whom it may concern, Dain did just recently make these posts in the VGS Discord:

Judging by the third post, it sounds like he might've contacted Karl to give his own perspective on things. (Don't know if that was already known or not, only been skimming this thread)

Credit to @Jeevan for telling me about this, as I don't frequent the VGS DC these days so I wouldn't have known.

To quote the video, 

"this entire deal happened between two men that were or are directly involved with the company" I'm not sure what context that changes. Also not sure when the collection was sold, just stating what I saw. 

He clearly says "were or are". 

[avatar! | 1,809]

58 minutes ago, AdamW said:

The difference is just that it doesn't need to be that big and not every last person needs to have been "in on it". I was mainly focusing on this bit of GPX's post:

"I believe Karl isn’t just targeting WATA or HA, but he’s mentioned also the journalists likely being in collusion, Pawn Stars, and a fair chunk of mentioning and showing footages of the dentist guy and his group of buddies. There is a grand plan going on, and the puzzles are still trying to be figured out."

I don't think we're gonna find any receipts that the dentist, an assortment of game journalists, and the producers of Pawn Stars are also silent partners in WATA, or something like that. As I said, it doesn't need to be that big or that smart.

Now, it would be quite the scoop if other actors were involved ...

But I agree, seems like a manipulation solely between WATA and HA as far as I can tell.