[Les Quam]

Recently at a sports memorablia auction that took place in Chicago. The one where the Honus Wagner baseball card sold for 1.6 million. The FBI was serving subpoena's during the auction on the auction house. This sports memorablia auction house is the largest in the world. The FBI is reportedly investigating the auction house for artificially inflating the market on sports collector items. One aspect of the investigation according to the Chicago tribune report was the alleged use of phantom bidders by the auction house. The FBI had previously been investigating sports memorablia auction houses and the industry in general for rampant fraud and determined that 75% of the items sold in the industry were fake?

In my humble opinion the classic car auction houses will be next on the list for the feds to investigate. I have never understood how or why the auction houses came to the conclusion it was legal to "use all means necessary" to get the bidding near or to the bidders reserve via the use of phantom bidders. I imagine the owners have asked an attorney or had one review this practice to determine its validity? But I have never been able to figure out how this is not a fraudulent practice nor have any of the other attorneys I have asked?

I also think cars and their owners like the one mentioned on this thread would come under scrutiny given the vast amount of bogus or fake cars that get washed through these auctions. However this area seems to be more problematic given the complexity of making the actual determination of authenticity?