seeyouinescrow wrote:But, Aneoth, I was planning to be a serious bidder as well, so don't think you had this one wrapped up by any means!  

I'll second that:  if the bids were being held off by the bad seller vibes, and the price wasn't too high, I was certainly going to throw my hat into the ring (I think I was fooled last year, too, for the record ).

MadMaligor wrote:I bet there are alot of people out here lurking like myself who were ready to jump in.

Just out of curiosity, what exactly was pictured?  It was hard to make out some of it.  What kind of condition?

If its as good as I bet it is, send me a PM with your price and your location.  I will fly to you for pickup.  Im dead serious  

There was nothing really for sale.

na

Aneoth wrote:
Have another laugh at my expense, but you should know this. I am not the only one whose trust and respect you have ravaged by this situation. Many others on this forum are also exceedingly disappointed in your behaviors during this situation. I am simply the only one to put words to it. Perhaps I do so mostly as it was I who was most foolishly and openly fooled by you two in this situation.

I can see both sides to this.  On one hand, I believe the first post I had here mentioned along the lines of "Sounds like an elaborate in-joke"  The entire auction, from top to bottom, didn't pass the smell test.  This falls under the heading of "prank", as when someone is "pranked" aka "Gotcha!" is yelled after one is put over on an unsuspecting victim.  In that respect it suceeded admirably.  Please everyone re-read the listing. From the fact it was in the wrong section (Sports!!!), to the ridiculously small picture (then the silly blurry photo afterwards), to the unresponsive dude who called everyone "chief" (sounds like my junior high athletics coach, ugh), to the silly and nonsensical descriptions and sayings in the descriptions, etc etc etc, this was a nose tweaking of the highest order from word "Go".  For those that thought "Well, if there is a one in a million shot that this is the real thing, I'm going to treat it like the real thing and go for it", well, there is something called "The Lotto" and we see why we never win, because this was the other 999 thousand times it doesn't work.  The purveyors of the prank played the game fairly.....they left PLENTY of red flags available to the wary (I'm so cynical of stuff like this I'll probably drive by a bag of money on the side of the road someday thinking to myself "It's probably just a set up for a reality show...."), they didn't FORCE anyone to bid on what was a non existent item, and stopped the "auction" once it got heated.
   On the other hand.....
   Ok, another one of my interminable stories (feel free to tune out and pick it back up later in the paragraph). Many years ago, the D&D group I hung out with had these two friends who were girls several years younger than us...basically they were in high school while we were in college, and were friends of friends.  They would come over when we played D&D or watched ballgames and hang out. They were too young to go to clubs or out drinking with us (and we didn't let them play D&D they were too silly). So one day, to get back at us, they called us during our D&D game (which happned to be on April 1st..) and told us they had been picked up for speeding and in a case of mistaken identity, were thrown in the drunk tank of the local jail, could we PLEASE come and get them.  They were intentionally vauge about what city jail they were in, so we couldn't really find them.
   To make a long story short, we were so frantic we had at one point called a lawyer, and the girl's parents, and had begun calling all the city jails, until they called us up with an "April Fool"! To say they got the most obscene lambasting on the phone in the history of April Fool's jokes is probably an understatement.  We were PISSED (not to mention the game was ruined for that night).  It took a lot of apologies on their part and assurances this would never happen again for them to regain our trust. We tried to explain to the girls that a certain level of trust had been violated through the methods used, that it wasn't "funny" to let your friend think you were spending a night in jail.....
    While this incident is not the level of that epic snafu, I think when the trust of the forum is at risk perhaps there is something to this.  Personally, I thought the prank was well done and "fair" in that anyone who logically approached the situation should have seen it coming.  However, as we should have known, when it comes to rares and super-rares, logic is thrown out the window.  Emotion takes over and people do and say many things they wouldn't normally in the "heat of battle".  Everyone wants to be the one who gets "The deal of the century" for bragging rights, and the competition is heated, particularly when it comes to something like a woodgrain. Ironically, if the fake auction had concerned, say, some mint 1st print PHBs, or EGG signed supplements, I don't think with the stakes that much lowered it would have gotten this heated.  I would like to think that if I fell overboard a ship with a woodgrain in my hands, at least SOME of you guys might give me a hand in addition to rescuing the box   , that's how sought after the item is.
  So, just to finish, I personally was not bothered by the prank, but I can see that there are some who were.  Maybe to err on the side of caution, more care should be put into gauging the reactions of those "pranked" in the future and deciding if it's really worth it in terms of hurt feelings and lost trust. I haven't lost any respect etc for the guys involved...at the end of the day it was a hoax.

Mike B.

Personally I dont think its that big of a deal.   I think I might understand it more if the auction went all the way through to term and then you found out it was a hoax after winning it of it was set up for a quick buy it now that you picked up only to find out it was a joke, but this thing was ended long before anything like that happened.  

I am not trying to be a dick or anything Aneoth, but from the instant this thread was posted, there was red flags everywhere that people pointed out that this auction screamed of it either being a scam or a hoax.  It seems to me that you had this feeling that you were not only going to win this auction, but you were also going to make the seller "give it up" no matter what, even if he didn't have the items in question.  The thing is though, that based on the fact that the "seller" was refusing to correspond with you at all, in any circumstance, that would have considerably lowered the hopes of this thing was going anywhere but to be a dead end no matter what it was.

The joke may have been done in poor taste in some peoples opinion and I certainly won't argue that point, but realistically it was just a joke that was ended several days before any real damage was done.

Come on, Annie, it's just a little prank. Collecting should never be an obsession. I still respect you.

I don't get it.........

Crapped in his hand. That is absolutely classic! A bit raunchier than I would usually go, but still hilarious.
I, as usual, am not very serious about any of my posts. I do, however, have an ingrained tendency to poke a raw, bloody wound. Sorry, Annie, nothing personal.

No apology necessary.