I finally received my 1960's Knicks uniform from Heritage's May 14 Auction today, but there was no LOA accompanying the package. When I called Heritage to inquire about this, they said there was a "hiccup" with regard to the SCDA LOA's and they had yet to receive many of them, but he did not elaborate further.
First, I'm wondering how a major auction house can describe items as having been authenticated when they don't actually have the LOA's on premises (did SCDA actually look at the jersey??), and second, I'm wondering what this "hiccup" is. Between this and the effective end of SCDA, I'm wondering what the story is. Me thinks there is much that Dave is not telling us.....
Aaron
Can you post photos of this Knicks jersey or an old link to the auction?
Sounds like a sweet item!
By the way...you need the jersey, NOT the LOA. I think they did you a favor.
"Letters of Authenticity sell for 2 and a half cents at Kinko's"
Believe me, I am loathe to give SCDA any sort of reliance, but I still have to think for resale value. I plan on selling the warm-up on E-Bay (I bought the lot just for the jersey, but will hold on to the shorts since its a set) and want to make sure I "maximize my profits" to quote Dave Bushing.
NICE UNIFORM!
I understand the need for the LOA, if you are thinking of re-selling.
Many times, items such as your uniform will get more on eBay than at an auction house.
Getty and Corbis both have a lot of vintage NBA photos...worth a check.
Gotta keep my UCLA for the time being...let the forum know if you put the Knicks on eBay!
SCDA was contracted by Heritage to offer opinion letters on the items in their May 14th, 2005 auction. Dave Bushing conducted the authentication of all Baseball bats and jerseys. In addition, Dave authenticated additional football and basketball items dating from 1970 to present. All items authenticated by Bushing were accompanied by a hand written work sheet. The worksheets were completed during the physical examination of the pieces. All worksheets were then converted to the final Certificate of Opinion and mailed to Heritage prior to the start of their auction. Dave Bushing was the only authenticator of these items and only his signature appeared on both worksheet and finished letter. Only his name should have appeared after such lots, as only Lou Lampsons should have appeared after the lots he inspected. This request was not adhered to for the May 14th, 2005 auction. This policy will be strictly enforced for all future auctions and infractions will be disclosed by us with the offending lots listed. MEARS website will allow us to this in a timely and effective manner.
Items not authenticated by Bushing included pre 1970 Basketball (including Lot #19164) and football, cleats, spikes, and helmets. Also, Lou authenticated the Billy Simms jersey. In the cases where Lou looked at the item, I did not produce his final letters of opinion.
Regarding lot #19164 of the May 14th Heritage Auction, I was first contacted by Grant of Heritage Auction Galleries at about 5:00 CST this evening and informed of the problem. Prior to and including his call, this was the only letter he mentioned not being present. If additional letters are missing, I am not aware of them, but will work to resolve any issues.
Grant informed me he was certain they were at one point in possession of the Letter of Opinion. After speaking with grant I called Lou Lampson.
Lou assured me that he personally inspected lot #19164 from the May 14th sale. I explained the fact that Aaron stated the COO was not included with the items when Aaron recieved them.
Lou stated that from both the notes and photos he took of the items at the time of inspection, he would issue a letter and mail to Heritage first thing next week.
If there are any additional questions or concerns regarding this or any letter issued by SCDA, please feel free to either call me direct 414-828-9990, or email me at kinunent@hotmail.com
I purchased a football jersey from the Heritage May 14 auction, and recieved the SCDA letter of opinion and work-up sheet. The auction stated that this item would include the services of Lou Lampson, but upon receipt of the jersey, it was determined that Lou had not inspected the item. The staff at Heritage were quick to respond and at their own expense allowed me to send the jersey to Lou for examination, which I am certain he is in the process of doing. Lou asked to have the jersey sent to him, he was not about to issue a LOA without examining the item, ie take Dave or SCDA's word for what it was. In essence, despite the listing problem, I am satisfied with my item and the handling of the problem by Heritage. The staff at SCDA have been very helpful as well, as they were made aware of the problem and were interested in my issues being properly resolved.
Well, then this is a problem because the auction listing clearly indicated (and still indicates): "LOA from Dan Knoll, Dave Bushing & Lou Lampson/ SCD Authentic."
It's disturbing that, yet again, SCDA is either caught offering LOA's for items that they did not, in fact, actually inspect and authenticate, or once again SCDA has only acted to correct a blatant act of misrepresentation when caught by a consumer (or journalist).
In this instance, it's one or the other, with no in between.
I mean, seriously, did anyone at SCDA actually inspect this uniform? Is the LOA a complete joke? Why didn't it accompany the lot? Didn't someone notice it was missing at any point before, during, or after the auction?
Conversely, didn't Bushing and Knoll notice their names were (so they say) erroneously listed in the auction description? If they didn't why aren't they reviewing their own authenticated listings?? If they did, why wasn't they error corrected, when failure to do so meant deceiving customers??
Why does SCDA continue to make these basic, common sense mistakes?
And I don't buy that I just so happened to be the one person this actually happened to. As above, I'm probably the only one to actually bring this to public attention. (And BTW, it's truly shameful that I have to, of my own initiative, get to the bottom of this by posting on a public message board. I still haven't heard anything from Heritage. They're customer service from the instance they received my money has been utterly abysmal.)
You have every right to be upset. On a very basic level, it is very advantagous for an auction house to list the names of the individuals who looked at a piece as it should do something to drive bidder confidence.. Likewise, it helps the person offering the opinon to have their name associated with the work.
The problems when names are listed that did not look at the item are three-fold:
1. First and formost, the auction house is doing the bidder a great disservice. I would suggest that anyone who got an item that was listed as being looked at by any number of individuals, yet an opinon was offered by something less than that, contact the auction house and ask to have the purchase price refunded because you feel you were mislead over a critical piece of informtion that served as the basis for you making an informed decision to bid.
2. Secondly, this underscores the power of the on-lne medium in that these instances can be brought to the attention of the larger collecting publics world wide in a matter of minutes. This practice is well within the control of the auction house and just plain makes them look bad.
3. Thirdly, as you so rightfully point out, it makes the person offering the opinon look bad in that it gives you, the collector, reason to pause about just what their involvement was in the process.
All this will be stated in the MEARS auction contracts. If the auction houses are reading these threads, then please know that this is something that MEARS will not support and we will pass on the business fromproblematic organizations.
"Prior to and including his call, this was the only letter he mentioned not being present. If additional letters are missing, I am not aware of them, but will work to resolve any issues."
Just so you know, Troy, this contradicts what that guy told me this afternoon. He said a large number of the SCDA LOA's were missing or delayed (the "hiccup"), and that a number of them had arrived just today (he actually put me on hold claiming he was going to check the batch that just arrived for my LOA).
