Last night I got a knock on my apartment door. It was the Fedex man… He handed me a small package, which I was not expecting. I opened it up, and low and behold, it was probably the nicest looking auction catalog I have ever seen.

Talk about first-rate. The catalog is for Mastro’s Live Aug. 3 auction at The House of Blues.
This auction contains 80 high-caliber lots and I don’t think they could have done a catalog any better.
High-quality paper, great images and delivered with plenty of time for collectors to drool over until the auction date.


Yesterday I announced the Gavel Chat “Guess the Final Price” contest. I got tons of entries, so thanks and keep them coming!

Man, I love pennants. What other pieces in the hobby carry the same excitement and mystery like pennants? Every year tons of new pennants are being discovered and many of them pop up on eBay. There are many that are one-of-a-kind variations and many that are rarely seen.

Here is one of them: CLICK HERE

I have never seen one of these and the price proves that many others share my feelings that this one is a great treasure.

First of all, I would like to thank all you guys for reading Gavel Chat. I have been writing these blogs for about five months now and I have literally had thousands and thousands of hits on this site. The positive responses from everyone have been tremedous. I owe it all to you guys.

As a little token of my appreciation, I am going to periodically be giving away some really nice prizes.
That said, I am gonna make you work for this. I think the contest should be auction related and more than just a simple raffle where we draw a name out of a hat.

This is the first Gavel Chat “Guess the Final Price” contest. All you have to do is guess the final price (before the buyer’s premium) on a designated auction item which will be closing in the near future.
I will take bids all the way through the day before the auction.

All guesses need to be emailed to me at: chris.nerat@fwpubs.com.

The winner of the first contest will get a complete factory sealed 2007 Topps baseball set!!

All you have to do is guess the final realized price of the Honus Wagner T206 card (CLICK HERE TO VIEW AUCTION DESCRIPTION AND PHOTO) that will be auctioned off by Mastro Auctions live sale at the House of Blues on Aug. 3 in Cleveland. The person who guesses the closest to the correct winning bid will win the contest. If more than one entries are the same, I will then do a random drawing to determine the winner.

All entries must be received by Aug. 2.

Make sure you include your full name and the city/state where you live in the email entry. Please, only one entry per person.


Thanks and good luck!

Last week a nice old lady called me and said she found a Babe Ruth signed baseball at her home. Her father actually played professional baseball and received the ball from Ruth at one of the Sultan of Swat's many exhibition games that he took part sometime in the 1930s.

The ball looked pretty good to me, although I will admit I am not Ruth autograph expert.

Anyway, she wanted to know how she could get it authenticated. Supposedly she has a man who promised her more than $30,000 for it if she got him a Certificate of Authenticity. (By the way, the ball I have pictured in this blog is not her ball. Her ball was toned and had a signature on the side panel that would rate about a 6/10.)
Using past auction results as a guide, I can’t imagine that a ball in the condition it was in could be worth much more than $10,000, much less than the man promised her. I stressed to her that something sounded very fishy about this and told her to be very, very careful.

I really have to wonder how many people get taken by crooks in the hobby. It is very, very scary.

I have no idea if she will ever sell the ball for that amount, if she will get ripped off or even ever get it authenticated (she didn’t like the idea of sending it into an authentication company). I probably will never find out, but it makes me wonder… you know?

I normally wouldn't write about the World Series of Poker in a blog, but one thing I've realized over the years is that card collectors are gamblers. Plain and simple.

I don’t know if the reason for this is because buying a pack of cards is more like buying a lottery ticket, or just because the majority of people in our hobby are sports fans (gambling is often associated with sports).

That said, tomorrow is the final table at the WSOP in Las Vegas, and I am actually toying around with the idea of ponying up $19.95 to Direct TV in order to watch the last table, live and unedited.

For those of you who don’t know too much about televised poker tournaments, most of them are not live, and almost all of the stations edit out the boring parts.

It’s kind of like televised fishing tournaments. During a day of fishing you could have your pole in the water for hours and never get a bite. When ESPN televises a fishing event, it seems like these guys are reeling in fish left and right…

Anyway, I have never heard of any participants who have a chance at this year's final table… Scotty Nguyen just got eliminated as I am typing this, but it should be fun to watch nonetheless.


Vintage Authentics and American Memorabilia’s auctions end this week. Vintage is highlighting a Babe Ruth home run bat (already at more than $57,000) and AMI is offering a wide array of high-grade Sandy Koufax cards as some of its headliners.

Make sure you check out these two sales, as there are still many deals to be had.


In other auction news, I received this email from the president of Mastro Auctions, Doug Allen, today. I am not going to give my opinion on this, as I would rather see what you guys have to say about it. As always, feel free to post your comments:
 
Dear Customer:      
 
 As a firm, we have always preferred to handle disputes with professionalism and discretion, even in the infrequent occasion that it is necessary to resolve them in court. Recently, we had what became a very public dispute with a former customer, autograph dealer Bill Daniels. Due to the public nature of this dispute, a number of you have asked about the legitimacy of his claims. Last week, the Honorable Matthew C. Kincaid from the Boone (Indiana) Superior Court issued a 46-page ruling. We thought it appropriate to communicate his findings, and resolution of this dispute, to our customers. Following is a synopsis of the judgment that the Court issued.  
 
 The Court found that Daniels’ statements that Mastro Auctions defrauded him, and conspired with PSA/DNA to do so, were defamatory. The Court also found that Daniels “affirmatively sought republication of defamatory statements in national media outlets such as Barron’s and New York Daily News.” In particular, the Court characterized Daniels’ conduct as “picayune, foolish, errant, resultant from a lack of understanding of his rights to publicly declare his complaints outside of a judicial proceeding and overzealous.” As a result, the court held Daniels liable for damages to Mastro Auctions’ reputation in the amount of $1,000.  
 
 The Court found that the proposed experts Daniels produced at trial – Richard Simon and Stephen Koschal (whom Daniels had testify that Mastro Auctions sold him forgeries) – were not qualified to render expert opinions. In particular, the Court found that Simon had undergone a “wholesale demolition in his deposition” and that Koschal was “not qualified to render an opinion on anything having to do with autographs.” Simon and Koschal were offered as witnesses after five other proposed experts “all refused to testify on [Daniels’] behalf.” 
 
 The Court sanctioned Daniels for his conduct of the litigation during discovery, specifically citing Daniels’ failure to disclose relevant documents timely and to “represent his claimed harm accurately.” As a result, Daniels was fined $2,000. 
 
 The Court found that Daniels presented “no evidence” of fraud and that Daniels’ claims that Mastro Auctions defrauded him—and conspired with PSA/DNA to do so--were “false.” The Court entered judgment against Daniels on those claims and awarded no damages. 
 
 Daniels was given $608.85 because a small portion of the 2,012 photos Daniels purchased in December 2004 were not as described in the lot description.  Mastro Auctions offered to replace those photos shortly after the auction, but Daniels refused. 
 
 The only negative of the judgment was that an additional award to Daniels was made on the basis that our catalog stated “LOA from James Spence  Steve Grad / PSA DNA,” but Steve Grad was the only one to physically sign the LOA on behalf of the PSA/DNA team.  Our attorneys will ask the judge to reconsider that portion of the ruling. 
 
 Overall, Mastro Auctions is very happy with this result.  Although it is unfortunate that this dispute had to go all the way to trial, we are pleased that the judge sent what we believe to be a resounding message against Mr. Daniels’ exaggerated claims and conduct of his lawsuit. 
 
 Sincerely,
Doug Allen
President
Mastro Auctions

All big-time baseball memorabilia collectors need to make sure they check out Hunt’s MLB Live Auction at DHL All-Star Fanfest, which will take place tomorrow at 10am PDT.

Widely recognized as one of the best auctions of the year, the sale will feature a Babe Ruth bat used in the 1923 World Series, as well as a 1955 Ted Williams game-worn jersey, killer single-signed Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig balls, the original line-up cards from the 1933 All-Star game and tons of other cool (and very valuable) relics.

Recently, I was checking out the Network 54 Vintage Card message board and there was a post about someone who purchased a graded card that had a copy (fake) in an SGC holder.
This got me thinking… how can collectors make sure the graded card they are buying is actually legit?

First off, even though a professionally graded card is almost always fine, I would advise everyone to still be very careful when buying one. It never hurts to be too careful, especially when hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars can be at stake.

In the past some crooks have been known to crack open a graded card case and reseal it with a counterfeit card or a lower-grade card. Remember, just because a card is not a counterfeit doesn’t mean a crook isn’t trying to deceive you.

For instance, there may be a 1954 Topps Hank Aaron for sale in a PSA 9 case. What you have to make sure is that the card inside is actually a 9 and not swapped with a lower grade; like an EX example. The difference could mean thousands…

Also, check the edges of the slab. Tampering may show up as a cloudy-white appearance, glue residue may be present, etc.
Make sure the label is legit. I have seen PSA labels counterfeited. With the help of computers crooks can be very good at deceiving collectors. Reprinting fake labels is one of many ways graded cards can be messed with.

Another way to spot a fake graded card is by double-checking a card’s serial number. This may help, but also remember that if the crook is using a fake label there is nothing to stop them using a legit serial number.

If I was going to potentially spend a lot of money on a card and was suspicious, I would probably contact the grading company to get its opinion on it. If they had second thoughts then I would be stay away.

American Joey Chestnut proved me wrong on the 4th of July, when he defeated his longtime nemesis, Takeru Kobayashi, in the 2007 Nathan’s Hotdog Eating Contest. You’ve gotta hand it to Kobayashi however. Anyone who can have a “reversal,” (as the announcers so delicately put it) and put it back in his mouth like nothing even happen gets my respect. For those of you who don’t know what a “reversal” is in hotdog eating competitions, I would ask you to CLICK HERE.

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Next week I am getting DirectTV hooked up at my house. As of right now I do not get the NFL Network and I am going through withdrawal. While I don’t think it’s right that the NFL is holding the cable networks hostage by forcing them to pay tons of money for this channel, I still am going to get the dish specifically for channel 212.
There is no way I can miss all those Thursday night games on the NFL Network.

Just to be clear, the only reason I decided to mention the Nathan’s Hotdog Eating Contest in today’s blog is because I have a feeling at some point in the near future you will see some competitive eating memorabilia for sale. How about a signed package of wieners from Takeru Kobayashi or maybe some brats used in the Johnsonville event by the Black Widow… You know it’s only a matter of time.
Anyway, I see that Mr. Kobayashi, the undefeated king of eating, is actually an underdog to the American Joey Chestnut… Oooo, the excitement. I know what I will be watching on my 4th of July holiday.

Check this out. There is actually betting being taken on this event! Crazy. You can win even money if you take the slight-dog Kobayashi. Supposedly he has some sort of jaw injury, otherwise he would be the favorite. I am calling it right here on Gavel Chat – Kobayashi will once again prevail in a Jordan-like performance, just like when he dominated in the NBA Finals with the flu!

Wow… I guess I really couldn’t come up with anything better for today’s blog… Sorry guys. I will have some better stuff Friday… By the way. I will be gone Wednesday and a Thursday. Have a great holiday.