90s PMG Pumped To Ad Nauseam On Social Media

[pcptrade]

Originally Posted by AbraCalabro

Are you kidding? You are absolutely clueless. I said it can be done, there is no onus of proof here. There is no wild speculation and there is no lie.

Here's how it works, simplified:

X and Y are friends, X wants to increase perception of value in his item. He lists it with an auction house. X and Y can recruit Z, 1, 2 and 3 who also have accounts, or they can open accounts under names of friends or relatives willing to help out and manage the accounts directly and offer them a cut.

The auction goes live. The shilling flies under the radar. X's item sells for a new, record price, X has money, so he can pay for direct from one of the accounts he manages directly, or he sends the money to one of his fellow colluders.

The item is then held and is put up for auction again by the winning account, the same process repeats, except now it sells for even more. X has money, so it's no problem to get it paid for.

The trend kicks off and then the item is listed again by the winning account. Now that the hype train is chugging along, they don't need to worry about shilling, the perception of value has been changed. X is satisfied with the amount of money he will make now, no shilling happens once that number is achieved, X dumps the item.

The more popular the item is, the more heat it's generating, the easier it is to execute to successful completion. Especially because X can reference "legitimate" sales. I already touched on this.

There it is for you in plain English. Have you actually read my posts? What else do you need to be educated on?

This is one of many ways the prices can be manipulated and many here are aware of this. This applies to all high end cards and collectibles as well. So let us not portray that the prices of PMG's are the only ones that have been manipulated while other high end collectibles are not. As I said earlier, prices of many high end collectibles have gone up similar or more than PMG's percentage wise since 2019. So let us not pretend that the PMG prices went up because of manipulation while other high end cards went up because of organic demand.

Moreover, for such a scheme to work, the same card should have been on the market multiple times within a short period of time, which is not the case (except SN #56) based on the data below-

Originally Posted by rj.cataldo

Here I did it. Here is the sales history I can see for the Jordan PMG available on card ladder going back to 2011. Obviously there may be unaccounted for private sales - but that does very little for the “pump and dump scheme” you have noted. There are a few early sales on eBay I can’t see the SN for, but I’ve listed the grade auction site and SN of every card I can see. From what I see SN #18 was sold twice (in 2011 & 2015), and SN# 56 was sold twice (in 2020 and 2021).

*edited with more sales I missed

6/25/2022 - BGS 7 $450,000 (Goldin) SN# 79/100
10/25/2021 - BGS 8.5 $399,740 (Goldin) SN# 56/100
7/17/2021 - BGS 8 $312,000 (PWCC) SN# 73/100
5/23/2021 - BGS 6.5 $242,400 (Goldin) SN# 20/100
2/4/2021 - BGS 8 $480,000 (Heritage) SN# 52/100
2/1/2021 - PSA 6.5 $480,000 (Goldin) SN# 95/100
12/11/2020 - PSA 6 $222,745 (Mile High) SN# 97/100
11/20/2020 - BGS 8.5 $233,700 (Goldin) SN# 56/100
10/20/2020 - BGS Auth $151,926 (PWCC) SN# 43/100
7/28/2019 - BGS AUTh $25,223 (eBay) SN#
5/31/2017 - BGS 8 $15,000 (eBay) SN# NA
5/16/2017 - BGS 8.5 $19,600 (PWCC) SN# 75/100
2/20/2017 - BGS 8.5 $9,323 (eBay) SN# NA
11/20/2016 - PSA Auth $21,453 (eBay) SN# 23/100
5/18/2016 - BGS 8 $9600 (PWCC) SN# 16/100
9/20/15 - SGC A $8988 (PWCC) SN# 22/100
2/13/15 - BGS 8 $10,100 (PWCC) SN# 18/100
11/6/14 - BGS 8.5 $10,001 (eBay) SN# 99/100
2/5/14 - BGS 8.5 $8099 (eBay) SN# N/A
10/20/13 - $7099 (eBay) SN# N/A
5/25/12 - BGs 9.5 $41,825 (Heritage) SN# 87/100
11/17/11 - $6800 (eBay) SN# 18/100
9/25/11 - $8600 (eBay) SN# N/A

I think price manipulation (shill bidding via friends/family/fake accounts) is almost everywhere in the world of high end collectibles (paintings, comic books, sports cards, NFT's etc). It happens less at high end auction houses such as Christies, Bonhams, Sothebys because of the background check and capital requirement to bid on high end items. The OP took a general theme and applied to one particular thing. The scheme you mentioned can also be applied to the top 5 cards in OP's wish list and it will hold true.

EDIT: The total graded pop of PMG Red's is 59 (PSA and BGS). Assuming the pop report is inflated ~20% due to crossovers and resubmissions, true pop is probably close to 50. As far as I know, it is not only rare but also has been a sought after card for a while. When I entered sports cards in late 2018, it was my #1 Jordan card to acquire because I liked the aesthetics of it in addition to its rarity. It took me more than a year to acquire one because most owners that I contacted on IG were not willing to sell theirs. I was finally able to acquire one in April 2020 and I paid high six figures for it. I have no plans to sell mine for the next 5-10 years or maybe even longer and it will be one of the last five cards in my PC that I would part with. Any collectible that is rare and desirable has gone up 10-50X in the past 5 years and no one can deny that. And looking at the sales data above, 97 MJ PMG Red's do not show up for sale every month or two like Brady Champ Ticket, Lebron Exquisite RPA, Jordan 86F PSA 10. There has been only one public sale of 97 MJ Red PMG in the past 8 months compared to 8 Lebron Exquisite RPA's and 12 Brady Champ Tickets. That just shows most owners are not flipping them for profit.