Well said, Grey. Regards John ----- Original Message ----- From: Smith, Grey - 1367 To: [email protected] Sent: Tuesday, June 12, 2012 6:01 AM Subject: [MOPO] Kudaka and Lippincott
I feel I must now respond to Ms. Kudaka's bizarre accusations of "missing or stolen" posters, and the ongoing discussions about her accusations on MOPO. Many of your know me personally, and know how hard I work to maintain my credibility and reputation. I have taken thousands of consignments in my eleven years with Heritage Auctions, and have sold well over $50 million in movie posters. In all that time, I cannot recall anyone ever accusing me or Heritage of stealing their movie posters before this! In fact most of our consignments come from repeat sellers and their friends, and I believe our consignor satisfaction ratings compare favorably with those of any of the world's auction houses. Here is a link to all of the documents we just sent to Ms. Kudaka's attorney, including a letter from Heritage's attorney, in answer to her inquiry as to how her husband and her posters were handled while with Heritage: http://movieposters.ha.com/images/Lippincott-060512.pdf Ms. Kudaka's accusation that items were lost or stolen are contradicted by the evidence. Other than Rudy Franchi's referral, all of my initial dealings were directly with Mr. Lippincott via telephone and emails. Prior to receiving her complaints I had no contact whatsoever with Ms. Kudaka, who, it seems, remains very confused concerning the business her husband did with Heritage. For example, she states that from their first consignment we did not inform them that a Clockwork Orange poster would be sold at a later date than their other posters. In fact, a schedule was made at almost the very same time as her other posters were inventoried and both of those were mailed to them, as seen in the documents within the link. In a phone discussion with Mr. Lippincott, soon after the first consignment arrived, I informed him that Heritage had just sold a slightly better condition R-Rated revamp campaign poster for Clockwork in the previous November of 2009 auction http://movieposters.ha.com/c/item.zx?saleNo=7014&lotNo=89585 and therefore I thought it best to wait until July of 2010 to sell the one he had sent me. I explained that running one right after the other may not be the best way to get a better price. He told me he was happy to do that and indeed that is what we did: In July of 2010, a few months after we'd auctioned the rest of their material (in March of 2010), we auctioned the Clockwork poster http://movieposters.ha.com/c/item.zx?saleNo=7025&lotNo=83150 for a very solid price. Now if that is not looking out for a consignor, tell me what is? Ms. Kudaka now claims they did not sign an agreement to sell that poster. Again, she is confused, as Mr. Lippincott signed a Master agreement which covered the sale of any of their material for one year (among the documents linked to, above). She then claims that she and Mr. Lippincott mailed us material from which several posters went missing. However, as you can also see in the linked attachment documents, several days after mailing us an unsolicited consignment, Mr. Lippincott emailed me a list of what was mailed. The spreadsheet, again in the linked documents, shows exactly what was mailed from Mr. Lippincott to us, and on that spreadsheet there is no Get Carter one sheet nor a John and Yoko one sheet that Ms. Kudaka now claims were sent. She is simply wrong, as easily seen by the spreadsheet. In fact, after realizing that the two posters she later claimed were sent to us had not arrived, I asked in an email to her why she thought those had been sent. In response, she emailed back, "Charley jots the list down on a legal pad of what is going out." Ms. Kudaka still apparently didn't (and perhaps still doesn't) realize that Mr. Lippincott had already sent me the spreadsheet, and they were not jotted down there. Very soon after I received Mr. Lippincott's unsolicited, second consignment, I phoned him and explained that the posters he mailed were not of enough value for a Signature auction then asked whether he would care to sell in a weekly auction or would he rather I just mail them back. He replied something to the effect of, "I don't know but will let you know soon." I guess my mistake, if there was one, at that time was that I did not contact Mr. Lippincott again to remind him that I still had his posters in a secure spot and to ask him again what he wanted us to do with them. By the way, an unsolicited consignment, for those of you not familiar with the term, means a potential consignment that was never discussed with us or approved by us prior to being shipped. Ms. Kudaka claims we did not handle Mr. Lippincott's second batch of material in an appropriate inventoried manner. The answer as seen in our letter to her attorney is that the consignment was unsolicited and was never accepted by us as a consignment. It remained in a box marked with his name on it until it was finally returned. We typically don't make an inventoried schedule unless we agree to take the consignment. In fact the only reason we did not return the packages unopened, as unsolicited consignments are normally handled, is that I recognized they were from Mr. Lippincott. Furthermore, we did not mail back the posters in her same packaging material as she claims since usually when inspecting material mailed, one must open it to look at it. In fact, I feel sure that the packaging that we used to return all of her posters was more secure than the packaging they were mailed to us in. All of the posters on the spreadsheet that Mr. Lippincott sent to us were returned, as can be seen by our mailing documents. We also mailed back a French Grande for Star Wars that was not mentioned on their list, which we knew belonged to them. My offer to donate to charity the value of the posters they erroneously thought they had sent to us was purely an attempt to get through a hurdle which I felt sure was just a fact of their recent move, and perhaps their confusion from that ordeal, as she had mentioned to me in an email. At that time I had hopes of doing further business and proving our ability to them. Sadly my offer was taken by Ms. Kudaka as some sort of admission. Since then, she has gone on and on, on this chat group and who knows where else, maligning my and Heritage's reputation. Apparently a few others on this forum have been trying to use her confusion to their advantage, though I'm happy and grateful to see us defended, too. Meanwhile Ms. Kudaka continues to post her wild accusations using hearsay, speculation, and imagined conversations, trying to imply wrongdoing. I could offer further emails between the parties but I truly hope it won't be necessary to waste my own and everyone else's time any more. Heritage is a fairly large enterprise and of course has dealt with a relatively small number (given its size) of false accusations from time to time. I view them as attempts to take aim at a larger corporation, but I suppose they are defaming me as well. I have never intentionally deceived or misled anyone in my dealings, nor would I work for a company who does. In fact I would gladly offer sworn testimony under oath as to the truthfulness of all of the attached documents as well as to the issue of whether I received the two posters in question. Sorry again for the long email but any accusation that Heritage or I would pilfer, mishandle or neglect someone's consignment is either an ignorant mistruth or a malicious lie. Have we ever misplaced a poster before? Yes, but very rarely, and on those very few occasions, Heritage has always settled quickly, fairly and in an amicable manner with the consignor. Thanks for reading this. I hope I don't have to say much more about it, other than to again express my very sincere gratitude to those who have defended Heritage and me on this forum. Grey Visit the MoPo Mailing List Web Site at www.filmfan.com ___________________________________________________________________ How to UNSUBSCRIBE from the MoPo Mailing List Send a message addressed to: [email protected] In the BODY of your message type: SIGNOFF MOPO-L The author of this message is solely responsible for its content. Visit the MoPo Mailing List Web Site at www.filmfan.com ___________________________________________________________________ How to UNSUBSCRIBE from the MoPo Mailing List Send a message addressed to: [email protected] In the BODY of your message type: SIGNOFF MOPO-L The author of this message is solely responsible for its content.
