Conflicts
That is not incidental to this research — it is where it came from. But it means I have money riding on some of the same objects I publish numbers about, and you should not have to take my word for how I handle that. So here are the rules, in advance, before any particular case makes them awkward.
Direction is what matters here, and it took me a while to see why.
If I call a lot up and then bid on it, I have publicly argued for a price that costs me money. That is close to self-policing. But if I call a lot down and then buy it cheaply, every part of that sentence stays true even when the reasoning was honest — and I cannot prove what was in my head afterwards.
So the line is drawn at the only place it can be drawn cleanly. Call it or want it. If I have published a number below the house's, I am out.
A finding like “this category is underpriced” reads differently depending on whether the person writing it owns twelve pairs. You are entitled to know which.
So the categories I hold are listed below and kept current. Not individual pairs, and not what they are worth — a public inventory attached to a named address is an invitation, and thieves are opportunists. Category is enough for you to know when I have skin in the game, which is the entire point of disclosure.
Not disclosed calls. None.
If I am ever advising a consignor on what a lot should fetch while publicly forecasting that same lot, my private number and my public number are the same number wearing two hats, and no disclaimer at the bottom of a page fixes that. The same applies if I consign my own material: no calls on that sale, and I say that I am a consignor.
I do no paid advisory work today. The rule exists so that it is already written when I do.
Including the ones where I got it wrong and paid over my own number. Especially those.
A record that shows my calls but not my behaviour is only half a record.
By category, current as of the date at the foot of this page. Categories, not individual items — a public inventory attached to a named person is an invitation, and category is enough for you to know when I have skin in the game.
Sneakers, bought at retail or on the secondary market. Air Jordan 1s and 4s. Collaborations — Travis Scott, Nigel Sylvester, A Ma Manière. Kobes. Dunks. LeBrons. Sabrinas.
Bought at auction. Three lots from the Sotheby's Stephen Curry Collection, and two other basketball lots.
I am not an active bidder. Since I started publishing calls I have bid on four lots and won one. The auction items above mostly predate the research. I note them because the Curry Collection is a sale I have published findings about, and you should hear that from me rather than work it out.
I buy to wear, not to flip. That is a preference rather than a defence — it still means I benefit if the categories I own appreciate. When a call touches a category on this list, the call says so.
Worth knowing what the other side of the room is allowed to do, because most of it is legal, disclosed, and almost never read.
The house is paid on the outcome. The buyer's premium is a percentage of the hammer, so the party running the sale is paid more when you pay more. That is not a scandal, it is the business model — but it is worth holding in mind when a house publishes an estimate, which is the number I spend most of my time testing.
The reserve is confidential, and the auctioneer can bid up to it. Most lots carry a minimum the seller will accept. Below that figure the auctioneer may place bids on the seller's behalf against the room. Those bids are real in the sense that they move the price, and they are not from a buyer. It is disclosed in the conditions of sale and it is legal at essentially every house.
Guarantees change who has money on the result. A house may guarantee the consignor a minimum whatever happens, which gives the house itself financial exposure to the outcome of its own sale. That exposure is often laid off to a third party who commits in advance to bid a set amount, in exchange for a fee or a share of anything above it. That party may then bid — with a guaranteed downside no one else in the room has.
Houses generally mark these lots with symbols in the catalogue and define them in the conditions of sale. The conventions differ by house and the definitions are the authority, not this page.
None of this is a complaint. It is the plumbing, and once you know it exists you read an estimate differently — which is the point of the primer too.
But it does explain why the rules above are drawn tighter than the industry's. This site is worth something only if the record is worth trusting, and the cheapest way to protect that is to give up the small number of situations where I could benefit from being believed.
Julien's, Marshall Mathers Foundation, lot 1. A stage-worn Air Max 90. I called it above the house's estimate and disclosed on the page, before the sale, that I might bid. Rule 1 permits it because the call is above, not below. Rule 4 means that if I win it, the price appears here.
That was handled as a one-off. This page exists so the next one is handled as a standard.