Morality, legality and auction collusion

I would view these laws differently for necessities like food, shelter, and fuel. Luxuries though? Buyer and seller beware.

You are right though-- if a law exists then like it or not, we may be subjected to it, whether the law is just or unjust, fair or unfair, stupid or brilliant. I'm still not convinced about the application of these laws to ancient coin auctions, at least in the scenarios discussed in this thread.

PS-- this has been a fun an interesting thread. I hope it doesn't get axed though... we might be violating CoinTalk laws since these issues are rather political.

 

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Yes, I worried about that too. All in good faith, though - on all sides and with reasonable disagreement. Just on the luxury point, though: literally the only thing I inherited from my father was his relatively modest coin collection. I'm fortunate that I could afford to develop the collection, but if I'd needed the money then selling at auction might not have been just exchanging luxuries. I don't mean to personalise or shut down debate with a mawkish anecdote, but we never know what's going on on the other side of the transaction.

 

Your examples are all interesting but they were all also run by entities on a large scale seeking profit through cornering a market. Apples and oranges. As explained before niether I nor anyone else on this thread could or would seek to do this.

In my opinion this whole thread is taking something like this.

And building it into this

 

That could be. But this is a small market and it might make a meaningful difference to the seller. We can't judge how important that margin would have been to the seller.

 

Bottom line, I would never report any of you for wanting to team up on a lot, as it is none of my business. And if I find out that someone here ratted on a fellow member, you are going on my Iggy bin and will be persona nongrata.

If anyone wants to take a stab at a lot of Gordian III or anything else you think I'd also find interesting, let me know. Feel free to read into that as much as you want.

True coin Bros help each other, and they most certainly don't squeal.

 

But...
But...
But...

Coddling the seller is not our concern! Our duty is not to ensure that a wannabe seller has multiple avenues of selling, ensuring maximum profit. Stick a price tag on it and put it in the paper. Put it on Craig's list. eBay. Consign to a fixed price dealer. Consign to an auction house. There are so many options and none of it is the concern of the buyer.

It does behoove buyers to ensure that professional dealers make sufficient profit to stay in business though.

 

Amen

 

Ditto. And on that conciliatory note, I'm off to bed

 

PS: How can two people teaming on a lot be price fixing? It's an auction, and not two adjacent gas stations. Nothing precludes other bidders from coming in and outbidding them. Two buyers in an auction open to thousands of potential buyers simply do not have the power to set any price.

I rest my case!

 

I'm glad everyone got that out of their system.

See everyone at the next auction.

 

..coin collectors arrest!...

 

Nope. All this thread did was convince me I am in the wrong hobby. As a result of my new found fear of legal action brought by underbidder and consigner, I have determined that my best course of action is to cancel my participation in upcoming auctions.

We often discuss the pros and cons of allowing people to discuss specific coins on this list that have not yet come to auction. I wish we had a rule against it online but always thought it was OK via Private Conversations. I guess I was wrong. I now must regret my decision to show other examples of coins matching the type of a coin in an upcoming sale thereby possibly affecting the number of people who might have interest in bidding in that sale. Of course that could go both ways since my owning one might be taken as reason not to bid on the coin because it was so ordinary that Doug could have one as well as adding interest because it was interesting like the one Doug showed. We can't do anything without possibly having some effect and doing nothing could be construed as doing something by those looking for offence. This thread caused me not to bid on a coin in an upcoming sale possibly benefiting one of you at the expense of another.

This reminds me of a true incident from my time in the military. I was in a Joint Service organization and had to write efficiency reports for people of services other than the Army. My Commanding Officer was Air Force. Neither of us spoke 'Navy'. He called me to his office to inform me that TWO Navy sailors had separately gone to him to complain that I had endangered their careers by giving the other one a better efficiency report than I had given the one complaining. They had shown each other their reports and each wanted the one the other one got. The CO asked if I felt these reports were fair and accurate. I told him that both were considerably inflated as were all such reports at that time and neither person deserved the report anything resembling the one they got. That was when I found out that the CO agreed with me and said he was just checking. I don't know what he said to them next but neither came back smiling. There will always be people who find it more advantageous to complain than to work.

 

It defies common sense to think that a few collectors casually discussing how they might bid at an upcoming auction can possibly violate the Sherman Antitrust Act. Sallent's observation above is just one of the myriad reasons it makes no logical sense to think that the Sherman Act would apply to the situation that started this thread.

The argument that there are a lot of nonsensical laws still on the books only pertains to the laws themselves, not to the application of the laws. The Sherman Act isn't nonsensical, but its application to CoinTalkers deciding among themselves how they'll bid on the next NAC auction would be nonsensical.

Ultimately, the only individuals who can authoritatively answer this question are lawyers experienced in the interpretation and application of the Sherman Act. I doubt any of them frequent this site. In the absence of their authoritative opinions, I'll sleep comfortably no matter how many CoinTalkers I discuss my bids with.

 

I'll be the party pooper here and call it out for what it is. Legal or not, it's unethical to collude with other bidders on coins. Tiff, your first scenario is completely unethical, it's a secret agreement between two parties to defraud the seller. This is an easy one, and I'm honestly surprised to see so many people looking the other way on this. I have two standard, basic, ethical tests to determine if something is right or wrong, the golden rule and the Kantian imperative. The situation here fails both, easily, and in the most obvious ways.

How would you feel if a coin you were selling had's it's price depressed because bidders agreed to not compete? Suppose you lost 50% of the value of your entire collection when you sold it?

What would happen in a world in which everyone colluded in auctions to lower prices. They would fail to be a true price discovery mechanism, thus rendering them a useless way to sell products. In other words, if everyone engaged in that activity it would literally be the end of auctions.

 

So.....

Anyone want to collude together + buy some coins?

 

I absolutely disagree about it being unethical but I don't expect to change your mind.

We'd better just shut down CoinTalk altogether lest a some comment make someone change his or her mind about bidding on a coin. Oh the poor consignor!

 

I'm a little surprised that this topic has gotten so much traction. 2-3 people who know each other discussing whether or not to compete when the auction is open to millions of people, though realistically probably only hundreds actually bidding, can only have a limited effect. Arguing that there are huge negative impacts to the seller isn't realistic.

 

I'll change my mind if you have some ethical reasoning behind it? I gave you two examples of basic ethical reasoning, first year stuff. Nothing personal, but ethics is an actual academic field. You can say something is ethical, but you would need more than 'because I said so' to be correct.

 

Darn. Late to the party on this one! Some opinions as a dealer and collector both.

I think we can all see the obvious lines where dishonesty comes into play. But there is that middle ground that seems to be of debate here. It is not unusual (and happens quite frequently) where two or more dealers get together and discuss a certain group lot or lots at auction. None of them can afford the lot (or lots) by themselves, but collectively they have the ability to make the purchase. If they win they will then split the lot in various ways. This also happens with collectors. Pooling resources I dont think is against the law, but some posts have suggested that it is immoral and wrong (and possibly illegal). I think the practice is just fine, and ultimately leads to higher prices realized for the house and consignor as these bidders on their own would not have participated at all due to their individual resources.