[Query for longtime Pinsiders, re other big auctions & "elite" auctions]
Quoted from RyanStl:This thread is so different than the warehouse find thread from last year. There's a lot less racoon poop for one. I can't wait to see how this goes a couple weeks from now when people actually received what they bought and see the condition for HEP prices.
What thread was that ?
I haven't been a member here as long as many of you, but I recall that there was some huge auction in Tulsa, in 2018.
Maybe someone who knows can answer this. There was a guy who traveled around the country buying up select pins for occasional, upper-echelon auctions. A lot of the pins he would auction were rare, or supposedly elite specimens -- at (then) commensurate pricing. For these auctions, he published a (near-Sotheby's ?) catalog that puts to shame the vague, useless, one-sentence boiler-plate line rubber-stamped at CAW. It had full descriptions of history (if known), the condition, with at least a few pretty good photos. WHO was that ? Is he still operating, or has he gone through a "Slick Chick drain", not to be seen again ?
I think I must have a couple of those catalog pages somewhere, saved as PDF, but at the moment have no idea where. Some time later, I recalled a couple posts stating that his descriptions could in some cases be overly generous as to condition. But I don't think that was due to any deliberate chicanery. His auctions gave the impression of being a class act.
[Addendum: Trying to find some record of this, I started going through a lot of old emails. I'm sure I must have been on his mailing list, but so far nothing. Then I checked a master database of the files from a bunch of old computers. The one hit I came up with was Morphy Auctions. The file was dated 2014. I'm thinking that was likely the one. Still active ?]
One other thing to add: I'd be very skeptical that ANY of the SoCal dealers bought anything from this auction, due to the additional markup they would have to impose in order to turn a profit. I mean, WHAT is the adjective that captures "beyond insane" ?