Mastro Auctions, the largest sports memorabilia auction house, has closed amid an FBI fraud investigation. Three Mastro executives have purchased the company’s assets and will launch a new company called Legendary Auctions. Part of the investigation by law enforcement is focused on charges of “shill bidding”. [Read more…]
An article published in 2007 (see Auction House Buying Considerations, Part II: Chandelier Bid (“Sham Bidding”) Legislation) discussed proposed legislation related to “sham” or “chandelier” bids, described by a New York legislator as “chicanery perpetrated by auction houses,” with auction house Sotheby’s opposed to the legislation. [Read more…]
An article published earlier this week (see eBay’s *stoneark*: “Buyer/Bidder Network” Analysis, Part 1) included analysis of a select set of eBay accounts and their bidding activities with eBay seller *stoneark* (AKA stonark, AKA Corner Collectibles, AKA Cornner Collectibles). Anthony Shkutnick, partnered with eBay, offers for public sale “guaranteed authentic” wardrobe attributed to various classic Hollywood stars.
30 days ago, I began performing an analysis of eBay seller *stoneark* (AKA stonark, AKA Corner Collectibles, AKA Cornner Collectibles) and bid participation patterns on his listings of “guaranteed authentic” wardrobe attributed to various classic Hollywood stars. As a result, I identified 8 accounts that share not only some remarkable coincidences, but nearly each one has transacted with all of the rest, in addition to buying from *stoneark*.
Rick Spector of Stairway to the Stars forwarded a link to an interesting article, given the discussion initiated in Part I of this series.
This is an interesting development in how it relates to certain auction house policies (see Odyssey Auctions Terms and Conditions in prior article). [Read more…]
