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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Volodya, post: 2793659, member: 19615&quot;]It&#039;s tricky TIF, it really is, and mostly various shades of grey. The more formal an arrangement is, the less grey it becomes. I doubt any arrangement you&#039;ll be party to will be unethical in many people&#039;s eyes, let alone illegal. As Nerva notes in the OP, no one will object if you refrain from bidding against a friend on one or several lots. (I&#039;ll mention in passing though that imo no friend has a valid complaint if you <i>do </i>bid against them. It <i>is </i>an auction, after all.) </p><p><br /></p><p>At the other extreme, there&#039;s a famous story of an auction of US coins 100 or more years ago. I don&#039;t remember the collector or auction house involved or know how this story was exposed. I&#039;m pretty sure it isn&#039;t apocryphal though. This was pre-Internet obviously, and before even the wide distribution of printed catalogues. Auctions were attended almost exclusively by dealers. The handful of dealers physically attending this auction pre-arranged the entire sale; Dealer A would buy lots 1, 3 &amp; 5; Dealer B would buy lots 2, 4 &amp; 6, etc. These guys duly won all or almost all of the lots at the minimum opening bid. That evening, they got together in a hotel room and held the <b>real </b>auction, bidding like crazy against each other, but with none of the proceeds going to the auction house or consignor. </p><p><br /></p><p>Presumably no one will defend that sort of collusion, but again, there&#039;s a lot of grey between <i>that </i>on the one hand and you and Z agreeing not to bid each other up on a handful of lots on the other. Picture yourself as the consignor some day; how would you react if you learned that your proceeds had been dramatically reduced because all of the most active collectors had agreed beforehand on who would win which lot?</p><p><br /></p><p>Phil Davis[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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