I posted this reply elsewhere on the board, but felt the topic was important enough to warrant more attention as a stand-alone thread.
In case you have not been following, it was recently confirmed by Troy Kinunen of SCDA/MEARS that items their organization recently authenticated for the Heritage May 14 Auction were uniformly described as authenticated by Dan Knoll, Dave Bushing and Lou Lampson even if one or more of those individuals had never even seen the item in question.
This information was only made public more than three weeks after the auction's close when my game worn item arrived without the accompanying LOA as noted in the item's description. When I contacted Heritage for the missing LOA, I was told many SCDA LOA's were delayed and had not yet arrived at Heritage's offices.
In the course of Troy's response posted here on this web-site, he confirmed that Dan Knoll and Dave Bushing had not, in fact, authenticated the item as the auction's item description maintained.
This was later elaborated by Troy and Dave Grob to have been an across the board occurrence on all of Heritage's items which were described as authenticated by anyone at SCDA/MEARS.
If you bought any game worn items in the recent Heritage auction, I would strongly suggest you contact Heritage and/or SCDA/MEARS to confirm whether or not your item had actually been authenticated by those listed on the auction's item description or the LOA itself.
I truly don't know if I was the only bidder who was effected by this or is other bidders were deceived as well, but I look forward to the answer in either case.
Troy K. of SCDA/MEARS wrote: "The problem arises with the way the authenticators were portrayed in the Heritage catalog. The entire staff of SCDA authenticators including Lou Lampson were listed after each and every lot description. Although the SCDA letters were only signed by the individual inspecting the piece, the catalog was in error.
The listing of all the authenticators were brought to my attention after the publishing of the catalog."
Troy, thanks for confirming that you, Dave Bushing, Dan Knoll and the rest of SCDA/MEARS were aware of, and thus complicit in the recent potentially fraudulent activities by Heritage Auctions.
You knew that lots contained in the Heritage Auctions were incorrectly described as being authenticated by members of SCDA who had not actually examined the material, yet you and the rest of your SCDA/MEARS organization did nothing to correct the situation.
Whether I agree with Dave Bushing's and your organization's practice of undisclosed conflict of interest, I have always agreed that Dave Bushing was a leading authenticator (or at least the leading marketable authenticator) in the business.
It is indisputable that having his name on a LOA increases an items worth. The lot I won had a high bid of over $2,300 including the buyer's premium.
There is no doubt in my mind that the lot would not have reached such a high price if Bushing and Knoll's names were not fraudulently included in the item's description of the accompanying LOA.
So, in a very real sense, Heritage defrauded its customers in order to increase its own bids (and buyer's and seller's premiums) by including the names of SCDA/MEARS authenticators who had not actually authenticated the items to be named in the item description.
Conversely, without Bushing and Knoll's name on my LOA, the resale value of my item has dramatically decreased.
So, I (and possibly others) have been hit twice by Heritage and SCDA/MEARS. Inducing a higher bid from me than I would have bid otherwise, and leaving me stuck with items that might have a substantially lower value than what I paid for it.
Yet, now we are to understand this occurred not just to me, but potentially to every customer that bought an SCDA inspected item in the recent May 14 Heritage Auction.
You could have forced Heritage to come clean about their items. You could have come here and made an announcement that Heritage was mislabeling their items. Instead, you and the entire SCDA/MEARS organization chose silence (and profits) and by that you and your organization are complicit in perpetrating this potentially enormous fraud along with Heritage against the collectors who purchased items.
In my mind, this is an enormous scandal of fraud on a large-scale perpetrated against the game worn collecting community. The worst that SCDA/MEARS has ever been involved in my mind, since by your own admission it was perpetrated not just on a single item but throughout an entire major auction house offering.
This all but destroys a collector's faith that an item has actually been authenticated by the SCDA/MEARS authenticators who have signed an SCDA/MEARS LOA.
Regarding Dave G's response, in which he tried to absolve all responsibility of this fraud from SCDA/MEARS and shift blame to Heritage, I went to make perfectly clear I hold SCDA/MEARS just as responsible for defrauding me out of money as Heritage is.
I am more than willing to find an amicable solution to this situation, but I hold both auction house and authenticator responsible for possibly defrauding me and I will seek restitution from both parties.
Aaron, perhaps you should find another hobby and save yourself a stroke. It seems that each of your posts is crying bloody murder and moral catastorphy about something. I hear knitting is good for the blood pressure.
Yeah, hygh, I suppose I should take a more lighthearted approach to being defrauded.
Who cares if the auction site says the LOA is signed by three guys, so long as one or two of them are really legit? It's all good, right?
Besides, why should I mind if there's a little "exaggeration" if it means I spend more needlessly and end up with something not as valuable upon re-sale? I've got hundreds or thousands of dollars to burn!
What a great hobby where this kind of stuff goes on and you just sit back and take it like a sucker. If that's not relaxing, I don't know what is.
I have been openly in agreement with you on this issue for some time. I am involved with MEARS which has yet to produce a single letter on any item. You have every right to be upset with both SCDA and Heritage Auctions and I have stated so. I offered courses of action available to you that involve both SCDA (having all the parties stated look at the item) or having Heritage refunnd the money.
I ask you to go back an re-read what I have posted before you consider accusing me or MEARS of fraud.
