Heritage Signature Auction Results, Astonishments, Shocks, Disappointments, etc.

[The Amazing Chump]

i'm black listed on HA and CL for speaking out about their practices, now i know why sborock didn't contact me the last time he was in the city. the STT 107 CGC 9.0 twin cities was sweet.

 

they really do that ? even heritage ?

 

You would think that a business owned by a felon would be more inclusive, no?

 

 

What owner was convicted of a felony? Aren't there bonding and licensing demands that prevent a felon from having an ownership stake in these types of businesses?

 

I think he is talking about Halperin being brought up on charges of fraud when he was younger. Don't think he was convicted though.

 

Correct. He made a deal.

 

http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2004/1227/156.html

 

Halperin? Halperin?

 

Name seems familiar...doesn't he also own a sizeable chunk of CGC?

 

Interesting article. Especially the portrait of a new market finding maturity. Although this bit did make me laugh:

 

"Halperin says he does this with 15% of the thousands of coins Heritage buys each year. Much of the time, he gets what he's looking for. That's good for the seller of the coin. But the buyer has no way of knowing that his 65 used to be a 64."

 

I like how the author bought the premise of the statement without question. If heritage buys it, cracks it, then flips it, doesn't that mean the profit goes to heritage while the seller gets (not to put it too bluntly) el shaft? Probably should have been a bit more background interviewing after the initial draft.

 

Comes off pretty scummy and incestuous in the piece, though.

[Flaming_Telepath]

Because I bid $10,000 for a book that I won for $8000. I put that bid in over a week ago.

 

Which means that your book doesn't look to have been shilled, but provides no concrete evidence that the practice couldn't be happening.

 

Just saying...

 

I'm a frequent-enough lurker here to appreciate you're a well-respected member of the community. As such, I take your contempt of Heritage pretty seriously - did you have a poor/suspicious experience with them in the past that turned you off?

 

My concerns are these...

 

(1) Heritage owns a good proportion of the items they auction.

(2) Heritage has access to bidding information

(3) Heritage has set up in Texas as shill bidding isn't illegal within the state

(4) Heritage is owned in part by Jim Halperin, a man who has demonstrated questionable ethics in the past

 

Does all this mean that they are engaged in something underhand? No.

 

Does it mean that we should all be wary and continue to ask the right questions? Hell, yes. (thumbs u

[Flaming_Telepath]

As for the shilling speculation, I don't buy it. First, Heritage is doing extremely well...

 

The real question is, since it's legal in Texas, why wouldn't they shill bid their own auctions?

 

[namisgr]

This auction was held in New York. And they don't own the Dahlberg collection.

 

Ask your friend John if he thinks it was done on the up and up.

[Flaming_Telepath]

This auction was held in New York. And they don't own the Dahlberg collection.

 

Ask your friend John if he thinks it was done on the up and up.

 

Bob, point me to where I said this auction was shady?

[MCJ]

If they wanted to, they could have bid everyone up to their secret maximum bids at the time each lot came up for live bidding, which they haven't done in my bidding experience, which saved me over 20% on my particular case.

 

More often that not, I was outbid in the days prior to the auction by one or more internet bidders.

 

I think the real issue of the Live Auction was the frequent lag, which prevented more than a few bidders from getting their bids in apparently, and they lost several phone bidders apparently on some of the high priced lots.

 

I think Heritage might want to contact a company like Akamai (I'm not a shareholder) to accelerate their web performance and/or the local telecom to allocate more bandwidth and landlines/FAX lines...They left some money on the table by not allocating enough to the temporary infrastructure.

 

Perhaps the lag helped me in my case, no idea, but if I'd waited to place a higher bid via Heritage Live if necessary, I probably wouldn't have been able to get my bid submitted in response to a counterbid.

[walclark]

I just won a lot, clearly showed I won a lot (disabled my live bidding buttons, said "you are winning"...lot closed, in the upper right corner in green showed I was the winner...just clicked on my summary and it said I was outbid... huh??? someone has some splaining to do

 

That happened to me on 3 books I bid on and supposedly won at the end of internet bidding. That's 1 heck of a lag time and their system didn't give me a chance to ever raise my bid as it said I was the highest bidder.

 

Same happened to me on an Air Fighters. I didn't realize it till I went to post a scan and found it wasn't really mine.

 

I'm in the same boat on one lot. I was on HA Live, placed a bid, was high bidder, and when the lot closed, the box at the top said I was the winner. When I checked my summary at the end, there was no indication that I had bid on the lot at all (so obviously I was not the winner). Very curious.

[sufunk]

I should probably shut the he'll up but as usual won't.

 

How in the hell can anyone be bidding on this site with everything in this thread??? Granted, I'm in the minority and am a comiclink/ comicconnect guy mainly. I don't bid on heritage for the simple reason that to me, I don't like the site or way the auctions are set up. For some reason its a pia to me but there are some VERY serious issues here!

 

Take away halperins issues and the shilling concerns even but there are THREE freaking people just in this thread saying they won books but now didn't win them! That's insane to me, I can't remember even hearing that once before much less 3 times. What the he'll is going on?

 

I don't doubt that gator is a big enough heavyweight to demand and get satisfaction but what about a nobody like me? I would be pissed beyond belief if I didn't get a book I won for dm sure. Would heritage make a small fry like me right?

 

What's the word on this? Did you guys really win the books and it's just some glitch or is heritage claimg someone else won these books? If they are, that is incredibly troubling to me and worries me as much as any other issue they may or may not have

[tth2]

I just won the one lot I was focusing on too... (thumbs u

 

Now I have the Savannah Pedigree Superboy #133, the Green River Pedigree Superboy #133, and the Oakland Superboy #133.

 

(Oh... and the crappy, chewed up, childhood sckao Superboy #133.)

 

(Hope to locate the Boston Superboy #133 someday... )

 

Cool!

 

We`re going to have to change your name to Shin Cal!

[paperheart]

dear lord, i'm almost ready for drdonald to come back so we can focus on the actual books

[tth2]

Because I bid $10,000 for a book that I won for $8000. I put that bid in over a week ago.

 

Which means that your book doesn't look to have been shilled, but provides no concrete evidence that the practice couldn't be happening.

 

Just saying...

So you`re saying that they pull off their fraud in a completely random manner?

 

They sound like criminals from a Guy Ritchie movie!

[sufunk]

dear lord, i'm almost ready for drdonald to come back so we can focus on the actual books

 

How can we focus on the books when half the people in this thread that "won" them now arent sure what if any books they won???

 

I'd rather hear about that and how its being resolved than the books at this point personally (thumbs u

[taro90]

dear lord, i'm almost ready for drdonald to come back so we can focus on the actual books

 

How can we focus on the books when half the people in this thread that "won" them now arent sure what if any books they won???

 

I'd rather hear about that and how its being resolved than the books at this point personally (thumbs u

 

I'm calling Heritage later today, I just the invoice for a book I didn't even bid on. This is ridiculous!!! :screwy:

 

$1400 for this???

 

http://comics.ha.com/common/view_item.php?type=notice-winnernotification&Sale_No=7033&Lot_No=93418

 

I just won a lot, clearly showed I won a lot (disabled my live bidding buttons, said "you are winning"...lot closed, in the upper right corner in green showed I was the winner...just clicked on my summary and it said I was outbid... huh??? someone has some splaining to do

 

That happened to me on 3 books I bid on and supposedly won at the end of internet bidding. That's 1 heck of a lag time and their system didn't give me a chance to ever raise my bid as it said I was the highest bidder.

 

Same happened to me on an Air Fighters. I didn't realize it till I went to post a scan and found it wasn't really mine.

 

I "won", then lost, House of Mystery 143, 9.4. At this rate, perhaps I'll win it again.

 

Unlike me, I just found out that I won a $1,400 book that I didn't even bid on. It says I won in "my bids" section. Yet, in my bids/my track doesn't show it. I need someone from Heritage to explain that one to me.

[Korvac Saga]

I went 2 for 6 on my bidding, which would put me in the hall of fame if it was for baseball, but I digress. Got a TC book, TTA #89 9.8 and a JIM #101 9.4. Undercopies will be in the sales thread this weekend(shameless plug!!). Saw some great deals on certain books like the JIM #90 9.2 that went for like $2200. Wish I had paid that much for my 9.2!!! Thought the grading was a little generous on some of those 9.6 early JIMs. Some had really soft corners to be graded 9.6. Happy for the Dahlberg family that the auction was so successful, if not bittersweet as well.

[pennynike1]

I have been a customer with Heritage for years and love their site. Quite simply, the material that they bring to the surface is astounding. I am a bit shocked to see all these amazing books auctioned off by them and not much discussion about the actual books. For example, the nearly $6,000 paid for the highest graded copy of Phantom Lady #18!

 

 

[Mr. 10%]

i'm black listed on HA and CL for speaking out about their practices, now i know why sborock didn't contact me the last time he was in the city. the STT 107 CGC 9.0 twin cities was sweet.

 

they really do that ? even heritage ?

 

You would think that a business owned by a felon would be more inclusive, no?

 

 

What owner was convicted of a felony? Aren't there bonding and licensing demands that prevent a felon from having an ownership stake in these types of businesses?

 

I think he is talking about Halperin being brought up on charges of fraud when he was younger. Don't think he was convicted though.

 

Correct. He made a deal.

 

http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2004/1227/156.html

 

Halperin? Halperin?

 

Name seems familiar...doesn't he also own a sizeable chunk of CGC?

 

Since he is inside the Heritage leadership-circle this is surprising reading !

[namisgr]

Simply put, live internet bidding is a flawed approach for trying to win auctions - lags with bids have been discussed in the past with Heritage auctions, and the company live auction page has a statement about lagging being a possible issue.

 

The live proxy bid feature would seem to be the reliable way to go. All of my live proxy bids were recorded during the auctions, and a few even held up as winners.

[namisgr]

So back to the comics.

 

I thought the Dahlberg pedigree was exceptionally nice. One of the highlights of attending the live auction was to go through the boxes and boxes of books, so that the quality and depth of the runs could be appreciated. These books have rich cover inks, bright and clean paper, and really nice white back covers. Some are marred by thin tanning lines, and these books generally did considerably worse at auction than the nicer ones. The collection tends to have teensy corner and spine wear on the pre-1965 material, but there are also plenty of early issues with exceptional structure like the ASMs 2 and 4, ST 109, 111 and 114, and the JIM 86. The post-1964 material looked super nice.

 

Excepting the Pacific Coast collection discovery in 1999, I think the Twin Cities is the nicest pedigree SA collection to surface since the Massachusetts way back in 1993. Indeed, it reminded me of the Mass collection in the like-new freshness of the paper and inks for even the oldest comics, the outstanding and consistent page quality, and the depth of the high grade runs, and of the Pac Coast collection in the owner's clear obsession with nicely registered copies.

 

Where does this collection rank? Perhaps just a small notch behind the Mass, which has even the earliest FFs in exceptional high grade, and isn't marred by the occasional tanning line. Definitely a notch behind the Pac Coast and the latter's ridiculous and consistent structural preservation. The Curators and Western Pennsylvania? Legendary, but seldom seen in any depth for true comparison. I think the Twin Cities collection compares favorably to the Northland, Winnipeg, Boston, Bethlehem pedigrees and the collections of later high grade material (Rocky Mtn, Oakland, Suscha) that are great collections but arguably shouldn't be considered pedigrees in the first place. Time will tell on the DCs, since only a fraction have come up for sale so far (the Bats 171 was off the charts). The White Mountain pedigree dominates them all for sensational early SA keys and pre-1960 material but can't match Twin Cities for paper preservation, consistency and high quality of the Marvel runs.

 

If you won any of the Dahlberg books I think you'll smile when you receive your comics - the cover inks and paper are truly outstanding.

 

Let the debates begin!

[batman_fan]

dear lord, i'm almost ready for drdonald to come back so we can focus on the actual books

 

How can we focus on the books when half the people in this thread that "won" them now arent sure what if any books they won???

 

I'd rather hear about that and how its being resolved than the books at this point personally (thumbs u

 

I'm calling Heritage later today, I just the invoice for a book I didn't even bid on. This is ridiculous!!! :screwy:

 

$1400 for this???

 

http://comics.ha.com/common/view_item.php?type=notice-winnernotification&Sale_No=7033&Lot_No=93418

 

I just won a lot, clearly showed I won a lot (disabled my live bidding buttons, said "you are winning"...lot closed, in the upper right corner in green showed I was the winner...just clicked on my summary and it said I was outbid... huh??? someone has some splaining to do

 

That happened to me on 3 books I bid on and supposedly won at the end of internet bidding. That's 1 heck of a lag time and their system didn't give me a chance to ever raise my bid as it said I was the highest bidder.

 

Same happened to me on an Air Fighters. I didn't realize it till I went to post a scan and found it wasn't really mine.

 

I "won", then lost, House of Mystery 143, 9.4. At this rate, perhaps I'll win it again.

 

Unlike me, I just found out that I won a $1,400 book that I didn't even bid on. It says I won in "my bids" section. Yet, in my bids/my track doesn't show it. I need someone from Heritage to explain that one to me.

 

Wow, $1400 for a Batman 82, I would be pissed too!

[Drummy]

Bob --

 

Thanks to you and Brian and others for your take on the collection first-hand. As a native Minnesotan, I was interested in some of Mr. Dahlberg's FF's for my collection from this group, but of course these shiny new auctions often went above what I would normally bid and got shut out on six of my seven attempts.

 

That said, I have one Twin Cities book on the way -- FF #38 9.4 (below). I look forward to seeing the color and preservation of it!

 

Did others bring home any of the Friday lots?

 

Dan