Buyers Beware on an upcoming HiBid Auction of GA High Grade/Mile High Books 1 1

[Bandelier]

I'm not sure if I am posting in the right area, still relatively new to the forum - but wanted to get the word out before someone makes a costly mistake.

There are a series of high grade GA books currently being offered at auction on the Hibid website - the auction is set for early April. They include:

Punch Comics #9 7.5, Shield-Wizard #6 9.0, Popular Comics #61 9.6 (Mile High), Startling Comics #46 (9.4) and more.

I looked into this UK based auctioneer and they are operating under a relatively new business name. Their old operation was under the name Simon Parr Auctions. A google search of this company will provide you with a wealth of bad reviews and fraudulent items including fake OA on multiple platforms. According to Autograph magazine, Simon Parr was removed form liveauctioneers.

The scans that they are using in these lots are direct swipes from scans of the past auctions. For example - Their offering of the Punch #9 shows an image displaying the old CGC label. This image was taken from the Heritage Apr. 3, 2004 sale. You can see that that book was re-slabbed at some point between 2004 and 2018 if you have the ability to look into it, and by the time that book was sold on ComicConnect in 2018 it had a new label. The current auction listing shows the old label image of that book, Heritage's 2004 photo.

https://hibid.com/lot/85600846/punch-comics--9--chesler--1944-

I hope this post gets in front of the right eyes and that people do their homework on this auction house before bidding. I am operating on a pure hunch but a lot of evidence suggests this would be a bad bid.

Kyle

 

 

[LDarkseid1]

That’s some shady stuff right there! Thanks for the heads up 👍

[MB1952]

Really awesome in your part. Thanks for sharing bud 👍🏻

[C. Spaulding]

I had been watching those books as well and at least the Punch book can be tracked directly to a very established registry set/owner. Sometimes the registry entries get outdated but another piece of information to consider before bidding.

[Bandelier]

16 minutes ago, C. Spaulding said:

I had been watching those books as well and at least the Punch book can be tracked directly to a very established registry set/owner. Sometimes the registry entries get outdated but another piece of information to consider before bidding.

I did not realize that - Thanks for sharing. I think I will reach out to HiBid to share the information, just so many red flags. The auctioneer doesn't even accept payment through HiBid and note that they don't accept Amex.

Here's a paragraph pulled from a David Bowie blog where someone spent £3000 on a forgery.

"Parr prefers bank transfer only in his transactions but by  a stroke of luck the successful businessman had been allowed on this occasion to purchase the. painting by American Express and was able to claim a refund back from the credit card company. Needless to say, Parr made the whole return transaction as difficult as possible and under his guise of Samantha Brown sent several emails in his familiar illiterate, aggressive style."

https://davidbowieautograph.com/blog/f/kristen-leigh-auctions-simon-parr

[Terry JSA]

That’s super sketchy, thanks for the heads up.

[Mmehdy]

thanks for heads up