Steven,
Yes. But even if the seller/auction house did reveal the consigner or
name-provenance of the item you purchased, for practical purposes your
only recourse if you are unhappy with the item is to return it to the
seller/auction house you bought it from and get your money back from
them. The fact that the seller/auction house said they had the item on
consignment from say, Brad Pitt, does not really entitle you to go to
directly to Brad Pitt and ask for your money back. Brad did not sell the
item to you -- the seller/auction house did. That's the whole point of
consigning something to a seller or auction house.
Sure, if you wanted to pay for it, a lawyer could probably make the
argument that by consigning the item to the seller/auction house that
Brad Pitt was somehow responsible in a vague kind of "implied warranty"
fashion -- some lawyers will argue any position no matter how tenuous --
but I wouldn't count on winning that one in court. Selling individual
used collectible items "as is" (which is essentially what we doing here)
is not the same thing as the Ford Motor Company manufacturing millions
of automobiles and selling them through a network on independent
franchised dealerships.
In lieu of some kind of convincing third-party authentication opinion
certificate, I think you will start seeing sellers and auction houses
putting aside this traditional "confidentiality" business and clearly
stating provenances and consigners on the higher-priced items. In other
fields of collecting, such as comic books, if an item is from a
well-known collector's horde, that provenance is almost always mentioned
by the seller -- it adds cachet to the item and will often significantly
increase its selling price.
Personally, I never really did understand why "consigner
confidentiality" was such a big deal in the movie poster field, but
Bruce probably has a viable theory that ties in with the push 'em ups
concept... :)
-- JR
Steven F. Poole wrote:
----- Original Message -----
*From:* Steven F. Poole <mailto:[email protected]>
*To:* Richard Halegua Comic Art & Movie Posters
<mailto:[email protected]>
*Sent:* Monday, October 12, 2009 12:06 AM
*Subject:* Re: [MOPO] Provenance...............
Actually, I don't own a SON OF DRACULA, just using that as an
illustration........in my case its another card from another Universal
film and Heritage is not the auction house/dealer in my case.
So, if provenance would not / cannot be disclosed, a dealer or
auction house seems to be putting themselves in the position of taking
in back in a No Questions Asked policy if I happen to suspect
it. I would not be able to go any further back than where I got it
from and they would have to honor my feeling about it?
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