Grey -
* As one of the few who defended Geraldine's right to post - and who knew the
tactical reasons why you/Heritage remained silent - and who also wrote and
spoke to you personally about this train wreck - I'm glad you finally felt
unleashed to strongly defend yourself here. Your response is clear, easy to
follow and portrays your role as a non-aggressor - whose every effort to
resolve this dispute was rebuffed. I wonder if the only outcome that would
have been satisfactory to Geraldine was a full retail cash settlement and an
admission of guilt.
* What bothered me was the small amounts in dispute in relation to the
big-dollar picture of Heritage's operations. When any person takes his or her
grievances public, it's almost always the court of last resort, as most
disagreements broil beneath the surface for many weeks or months before
exploding in public. The elapsed time between the start of this dispute to
today - was far too long, with the "MoPo portion" of this dispute stretching
more than two months. I never like it when any entity starts to lose control
of a dispute - despite the besieged entity
being in full possession of the facts as it knows them. It's hard to ascribe
intent to both sides - when only one side is doing the talking. The analysis
of your motives by third parties was bothersome to me because they were
"testimonial" guesses - vs. what you and I have talked about privately - and
how it all matches up with your post below. The relevance of third parties
speaking on your behalf is that it painted a bad picture to lurking collectors
about which dealers were taking sides against a disgruntled consumer/consignor
- and what adverse impact this might have on their reputations as
"customer-and-consignor-friendly" businesses.
* I apologize that many people interpreted my defense of Geraldine's right to
post - as equivalent to a condemnation of Heritage generally and of you
personally. From the beginning, having talked and met with you and Heritage
co-chief Jim Halperin in person, I've always felt it impossible to believe that
you're capable of intentional (or even unintentional) maliciousness. However
much I defend a person's right to post, in the end, as John wrote, it's always
more clear how things really are - when we can hear both sides. My apologies
again and my best to you. -d.
Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2012 15:01:47 -0500
From: [email protected]
Subject: Kudaka and Lippincott
To: [email protected]
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
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