[67BelAir427]

Based on my personal experience with this auction company I would say that the prices that these cars were supposed to be bid to is about as reliable as the daily reports from the Iraqi Ministry of Information. Two years ago I consigned one of my cars to this same auction. The auction house had a virtually identical car to mine (owned by the auction company) which I was told had a reserve of $40,000.US This was strong money for this particular car so I set a reserve of $30,000. on mine and figured that it would sell easily. When my car went through I was surprised that it was only bid to $27,000. Disappointed but not upset. Not until 45 minutes later when their car went through. I watched in disbelief as their car was bid to $45,000 US in less than 3 minutes and was a NO SALE! What I did not see was a single real bid place from where I stood. A beautiful orchestrated performance by auctioneer, announcer and 2 tag men. I confronted the owner about the magic act and he pleaded ignorance, and was offered a discounted entry fee at his next auction. I guess I was naive in thinking that shill bidding your own car past it's reserve was a criminal act, if not at least unethical. It only cost me a $500 entry fee to learn otherwise.