Is the FBI Investigating Mastro?
markj111
Posts: 2,921 ✭✭✭
From today's Sports Collector's Daily:
Report Claims FBI Asking Questions
Monday, 09 July 2007
Is the FBI looking into Mastro Auctions?
One newspaper report says yes. The company says it's nonsense. The New York Daily News reported in its Sunday edition that the FBI has initiated an investigation of Chicago-based Mastro Auctions, considered the largest sports memorabilia auction house in the hobby.
There was no confirmation from the Bureau, but Daily News reporter Michael O'Keeffe reported that Bill Brandt, President of a company hired by the state of Ohio to liquidate collectibles bought with stolen state funds by convicted felon Tom Noe, had deferred some of their activities to the FBI's own investigation. Noe's holdings reportedly included items purchased from Mastro Auctions.
O'Keeffe also quoted a dealer as saying he had been interviewed within "the last ten days". Another person in the hobby also said he had been contacted by the FBI but would not comment further.
Mastro Auctions' President Doug Allen, however, claimed no one from the FBI had contacted his office as of yet.
Report Claims FBI Asking Questions
Monday, 09 July 2007
Is the FBI looking into Mastro Auctions?
One newspaper report says yes. The company says it's nonsense. The New York Daily News reported in its Sunday edition that the FBI has initiated an investigation of Chicago-based Mastro Auctions, considered the largest sports memorabilia auction house in the hobby.
There was no confirmation from the Bureau, but Daily News reporter Michael O'Keeffe reported that Bill Brandt, President of a company hired by the state of Ohio to liquidate collectibles bought with stolen state funds by convicted felon Tom Noe, had deferred some of their activities to the FBI's own investigation. Noe's holdings reportedly included items purchased from Mastro Auctions.
O'Keeffe also quoted a dealer as saying he had been interviewed within "the last ten days". Another person in the hobby also said he had been contacted by the FBI but would not comment further.
Mastro Auctions' President Doug Allen, however, claimed no one from the FBI had contacted his office as of yet.
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Comments
Loves me some shiny!
<< <i>Like selling a Joe D rookie season used glove because Joe included a letter stating "This glove was used in my rookie season" and finding out the glove wasnt even manufactured until after Joe retired.... >>
Yea, like Joe really kept track of all the stuff he used. Nobody back then forsaw what this memorabilia would be worth and we all know Joe liked making a dollar. I've read where Joe never offered to pick up a check when dining out with others - LOL
there is a big thread about this on Net54....
Mastros name keeps coming up for bag things... wonder if it will come crashing down on them soon?
Russ, NCNE
<< <i>this is about MASTRO, lets not drag JoeD's name into this..... >>
it isn;t reallyabout mastro either , it is about some guy who was embezzling funds and spent alot of them with mastro
<< <i>Getting ready to wave good bye to another thread that collectors need to become more aware of...... >>
Agreed, and the more that disappear the worse it looks IMO.
<< <i>this is about MASTRO, lets not drag JoeD's name into this.....
there is a big thread about this on Net54....
Mastros name keeps coming up for bag things... wonder if it will come crashing down on them soon? >>
Come on now - it was clearly stated Joe was just being used as an example. This fraud can of course occur with almost any item of vintage memorabilia. This fraud is nothing new - it's been going on at least since the early 80's and probably before that.
Tabe
<< <i>Getting ready to wave good bye to another thread that collectors need to become more aware of...... >>
Yup. You can say goodbye to this thread pretty soon. Any other links before it goes *poof*?
My eBay Store
BigCrumbs! I made over $250 last year!
My understanding is that he FBI investigation is about shill bidding and other unfair business practices....
Regards,
Greg M.
References:
Onlychild, Ahmanfan, fabfrank, wufdude, jradke, Reese, Jasp, thenavarro
E-Bay id: greg_n_meg
<< <i>
<< <i>this is about MASTRO, lets not drag JoeD's name into this.....
there is a big thread about this on Net54....
Mastros name keeps coming up for bag things... wonder if it will come crashing down on them soon? >>
Come on now - it was clearly stated Joe was just being used as an example. This fraud can of course occur with almost any item of vintage memorabilia. This fraud is nothing new - it's been going on at least since the early 80's and probably before that. >>
steve, i was referring to the allegation that JoeD was cheap.....not true
<< <i>
<< <i>
<< <i>this is about MASTRO, lets not drag JoeD's name into this.....
there is a big thread about this on Net54....
Mastros name keeps coming up for bag things... wonder if it will come crashing down on them soon? >>
Come on now - it was clearly stated Joe was just being used as an example. This fraud can of course occur with almost any item of vintage memorabilia. This fraud is nothing new - it's been going on at least since the early 80's and probably before that. >>
steve, i was referring to the allegation that JoeD was cheap.....not true >>
Believe what you wanna believe.
Here's a paragraph that I quickly found Googling:
Book Magazine - Don McLeese
News flash: DiMaggio wasn't a very nice man. The Yankee Clipper of the baseball diamond was Revoltin' Joe away from it—rude and selfish, cheap and greedy, a guy who accepted money from mobsters and pursued sex with showgirls. He abused Marilyn Monroe and treated his only son like a photo prop. He used people and was convinced that people were always out to use him. (Often, he was right.) He lived his life with a sense of what biographer Cramer calls "regal entitlement," as if the world orbited around him, because the people in his world told him that it did. One gets the sense that DiMaggio might have fared better in these pages if he had cooperated with Cramer (a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter whose What It Takes is the definitive study of presidential campaigning as a war of attrition). Since the thought of turning his life into an open book was DiMaggio's worst nightmare, Cramer met the challenge of his subject's resistance with investigative resources, a fertile imagination and myriad sources who might have had axes to grind. At its most invasively salacious, the book seems to delight in playing "gotcha!"-for it's hard to imagine any man less likely than the pathologically private DiMaggio to share the size of his penis (a "Louisville Slugger," as Cramer delicately footnotes) with the world at large. At its most incisive, this biography provides an antidote to hero worship, and an indictment of the American celebrity machine. Such a book could have been written (and some have been) about Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan, Michael Jordan, almost anyone the culture inflates to godlike status and then deflates for betraying our larger-than-life illusions.
I will never buy a game used bat, jersey, glove, whatever, however. Never. NEVER. NEEEEVVVVVER! And if I ever catch one of my kids with any game used items, I'll make Joan Crawford look like Papa Smurf. "No game used items IN THIS HOUSE, EVER!"
Check out the site www.autographalert.com sometime.
As for these big auction houses doing shady things, is anyone really that surprised?
My eBay Store
BigCrumbs! I made over $250 last year!
As it stands now I rarely will spend any money with auction houses for just this simple fact. Not that I'm any big buyer or anything but I sure would jump in and throw some bids down if I clearly knew my bid wouldn't get manipulated behind the scenes.
I find it hard to believe when I see auction results that finish 3x's above the usual selling price. If it's not shilling, then there's an awful lot of dumb auction buyers out there who like to overpay.
The above post isn't directed at Mastro but all auction companies in general.
<< <i>Why don't all the auction companies come clean (ebay included) and display the bidder's ID's? That would help eliminate some of the obvious shilled bidding problems that currently exist. If would help make more aspects of the auction bidding process transparent and give potential buyers more confidence to actually bid again on lots.
As it stands now I rarely will spend any money with auction houses for just this simple fact. Not that I'm any big buyer or anything but I sure would jump in and throw some bids down if I clearly knew my bid wouldn't get manipulated behind the scenes.
I find it hard to believe when I see auction results that finish 3x's above the usual selling price. If it's not shilling, then there's an awful lot of dumb auction buyers out there who like to overpay.
The above post isn't directed at Mastro but all auction companies in general. >>
There's a HUGE incentive for an auction house to manipulate bids. First, high bids attract new consignments. Second, NO bids do NOT attract new consignments. Third, high bids bring in HIGH buyer/seller fees.
I, too, often find that the prices realized by the big auction houses are way above what I feel the item is worth. Ebay has taught me that, and even Ebay is ripe for the same amount of abuse.
Wherever there is a chance to manipulate profit, it will always be manipulated in favor of the person making the profit.
<< <i>I guess it's safe to assume that the Saturday night fight thread got deleted? Unbelievable... >>
Looks that way. I agree. It's their message board but by stopping discussions it makes them look guilty as sin.
Nothing to see here. Just move along!
If the allegations are true, I hope anyone at Mastro who engaged in criminal activities spend some time behind bars.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
That is the American way . .
It goes on all day long in damn near every single business in the country , every lawyer , every doctor , almost everything, not just auction houses .
Nobody is breaking any arms making anyone purchase anything, that would be criminal , if you want to up the bid , I guess you're willing to pay that much , people want to cry about it later that they think they paid too much at an auction house .
J-M-O-
<< <i>Interesting comments. I would actually take it one step further and say that I wouldn't even touch PSA/DNA or Spence stuff anymore. I'll take UDA, Steiner and Mounted Memories. They are the only ones who actually watch the guys sign it. Tri Star is reputable but after having been at their shows and purchasing autographs, I can see ways the system could be compromised.
Check out the site www.autographalert.com sometime.
As for these big auction houses doing shady things, is anyone really that surprised? >>
After reading the book Operation Bullpen, I will only collect any signed stuff that I witness....There are so many great fakes of Mantle ,Williams and Joe D. out there....Remember its only a opinion on this type of stuff after they have gone through all their sciences and examples. They never know for sure...100%
<< <i>Believe what you wanna believe.
Here's a paragraph that I quickly found Googling:
Book Magazine - Don McLeese
News flash: DiMaggio wasn't a very nice man. >>
In the late 1980s and early 1990s I worked at Bay Meadows Race Track near San Francisco where Dimaggio was a frequent visitor. He was actually accorded his own little private area in the press box where he was basically left alone by the scribes and press box employees up there. There was kind of an unwritten rule that Joe was not to be bothered. Joe never asked for any special treatment other than privacy. There was a runner who ran bets downstairs before they installed a self-service machine in the press box so he did not have to mingle with the public to make his bets. Joe always drove himself, arrived and left alone. The valet parking guys said he was not a generous tipper but at least did do. I got the feeling that the man was a prisoner of his own celebrity. He rarely smiled and begrudgingly signed autographs when asked. He did seem to enjoy playing the ponies as a pastime though. By all accounts he was not a big bettor.
We had a lot of pro athletes and a few showbiz folks come through the track over the years. Giants Bobby Bonds, Leon Wagner, 49ers Tom Rathman, actor Aldo Ray and some local personalities. Most came off as regular people. But I have to tell you there was just something different about Dimaggio, in a good way. Call it charisma, star power, I don't know, but the man had a quality - an aura, I don't know what - about him that was as if he was a higher being or something. I spent the bulk of my youth chasing down baseball players for autographs, and yet here was one of the greatest ever to play baseball, a sitting duck and I couldn't bring myself to ask.
I think Joe could be quite generous to those that showed him kindness and respect. During the 1989 World Series the TV cameras showed Dimaggio in the front row field level seats next to the A's dugout. But what caught my eye was not Dimaggio but who was sitting next to him. Not some San Francisco politician, not a Hollywood movie star, not even a blonde bimbo half his age but rather none other than the PR Director of Bay Meadows...
<< <i>I like the fact that I'm reading a thread about the fraudulent practices of a company, and that same company has an ad banner at the top of the page. >>
As such, I would be more suspicous of Mastro if this thread was pulled.
Mastro knows they advertise here, and they should know by now that this thread is here. So the fact that this thread is still here actually says good about Mastro.
<< <i>
<< <i>I like the fact that I'm reading a thread about the fraudulent practices of a company, and that same company has an ad banner at the top of the page. >>
As such, I would be more suspicous of Mastro if this thread was pulled.
Mastro knows they advertise here, and they should know by now that this thread is here. So the fact that this thread is still here actually says good about Mastro. >>
this is the second one i'm aware of (may or may not been another) the first poofed very quickly.
<< <i>
<< <i>Believe what you wanna believe.
Here's a paragraph that I quickly found Googling:
Book Magazine - Don McLeese
News flash: DiMaggio wasn't a very nice man. >>
In the late 1980s and early 1990s I worked at Bay Meadows Race Track near San Francisco where Dimaggio was a frequent visitor. He was actually accorded his own little private area in the press box where he was basically left alone by the scribes and press box employees up there. There was kind of an unwritten rule that Joe was not to be bothered. Joe never asked for any special treatment other than privacy. There was a runner who ran bets downstairs before they installed a self-service machine in the press box so he did not have to mingle with the public to make his bets. Joe always drove himself, arrived and left alone. The valet parking guys said he was not a generous tipper but at least did do. I got the feeling that the man was a prisoner of his own celebrity. He rarely smiled and begrudgingly signed autographs when asked. He did seem to enjoy playing the ponies as a pastime though. By all accounts he was not a big bettor.
We had a lot of pro athletes and a few showbiz folks come through the track over the years. Giants Bobby Bonds, Leon Wagner, 49ers Tom Rathman, actor Aldo Ray and some local personalities. Most came off as regular people. But I have to tell you there was just something different about Dimaggio, in a good way. Call it charisma, star power, I don't know, but the man had a quality - an aura, I don't know what - about him that was as if he was a higher being or something. I spent the bulk of my youth chasing down baseball players for autographs, and yet here was one of the greatest ever to play baseball, a sitting duck and I couldn't bring myself to ask.
I think Joe could be quite generous to those that showed him kindness and respect. During the 1989 World Series the TV cameras showed Dimaggio in the front row field level seats next to the A's dugout. But what caught my eye was not Dimaggio but who was sitting next to him. Not some San Francisco politician, not a Hollywood movie star, not even a blonde bimbo half his age but rather none other than the PR Director of Bay Meadows... >>
Good story, and just to set the record clear...I like Joe DiMaggio - he is one of my favorite ballplayers and of course is a favorite of many. Frankly his personal habits don't bother me one bit. To illustrate further, Ty Cobb is my favorite baseball player of all time...so I don't think I need to further elaborate. I enjoy athletes for what they do on the field and not off. There are exceptions such as an OJ Simpson who most feel was guilty of murder even though not convicted - I can't ever like a scumbag like that for what he did...so a rare exception I make for that. Of course Cobb killed someone as well but it was under much different circumstances than Simpson. Anyone can find information about this on the internet without further elaboration from me.
I just believe in taking people as they are, flaws and all...it actually makes them more interesting in my view. Perhaps because I have a lot of flaws myself and I admit it. But DiMaggio's quip of why he was motivated to perform at top level for every game...his reply paraphrase, "Because some kid might be watching me for the first time" LOL - I never bought that even when I first heard it as a kid - LOL. DiMaggio gave his all each game for a multitude of reasons and doing it because some kid is watching him for the first time in my opinion was way down on his list of motivations, if not possibly not on his list at all. But it makes for a good story and is interesting. Sometimes myths and fictions are more interesting than the truth.
I never met DiMaggio but you could feel his charisma even in those Mr. Coffee ads. BTW - I'm not going to name the name but there is a HOF football player who goes to a racetrack to this day with almost the exact same story as your DiMaggio story at Bay Meadows. I used to sit near him at the track and was friendly with him but just like you, I never asked this guy for his autograph even though he would have given it to me in a second. We never talked about his past football history, only some current football happenings and some personal stuff. It was mostly of course about the horses and picking a winner. He didn't talk much anyway - basically a quiet guy. To me it would have been disrespectful in my view to ask him for his autograph...perhaps to him it wouldn't have been disrespectful but to me it was so I never asked for it.
Thanks for the DiMaggio story!