Golly Jim, what makes you think I was referring to you?

I have no doubts that any auctions conducted by the Club (actually, its' appointed "auctioneer of record") would maintain the highest standard of honesty and accuracy in all respects. No questions here about that.

What I was really thinking about was the conflicts that would arise when self appointed "Auction Cops" also became sellers in their own right. I don't use "Cops" in a derogatory way, I know that you, and others, just want to do what you perceive as best for the hobby. You, and others, have made it clear that you see nothing wrong with ignoring certain eBay rules if you feel the rules aren't fair, and you sometimes actually advocate breaking those rules if you feel strongly enough about a situation.

Emailing bidders on an auction you think is misrepresented, for instance. eBay says it's auction interference, you feel it's your duty, and you actually encourage Club members to do this, even knowing it carries the threat of suspension.

Fine, no need to reargue that here, but it's one thing to do so as a neutral third party, it's another thing entirely to do so as a seller who is in competion with the "offending" auctioneer.

Here's a scenario to illustrate my point: The Club issues a set of Tournament chips, and after making the chips available to members, begins auctioning the remaining sets to the public. An unrelated party gets hold of a set through some legitimate means, and runs an auction on eBay. In the description, they use an adjective or a term that some Club members take issue with, "Rare", or "Face Value", or some such thing. Not a big deal to anybody but Club members.

Normally, I think that Club members would probably deal with this alleged "threat" to the Club and the hobby in a certain way. But since the Club is now a competing seller, the 3rd party, "arm's length" status is gone, and interfering with the auction by emailing the bidders now takes on a whole different light, doesn't it?

If you think about it, a lot of the activity on this board to "police" eBay sellers that is defended as being "for the good of the hobby" would lose its' "neutral 3rd party" status if the seller became a competitor to those auctions.