A large online sports card and memorabilia auction was halted Thursday night over a newly filed lawsuit.
Long-time dealer Bill Goodwin was conducting the final night of bidding in the inaugural auction for his new company, Heartland Sports Cards and Memorabilia. About 10:45 PM Eastern time, registered bidders received a notice indicating that the close had been postponed and bidding suspended because of a lawsuit.
Sports Collectors Daily has confirmed with an industry source that it was Beckett Media, the former owner of Goodwin’s old auction business, that filed the complaint.
“Earlier today, we we targeted in a lawsuit by another memorabilia company which we view to be malicious and unwarranted,” the email stated. “Rather than continue with tonight’s scheduled closing, we are taking a reasonable and prudent approach and suspending the auction.”
Goodwin said his company planned to honor bids that had been placed before action was suspended and resume the auction at a later date.
Goodwin sold Goodwin & Company to Beckett in late 2014 and worked in conjunction with them for some time, but the two have since parted ways. There was no immediate word on the specific nature of the complaint.
Huggins & Scott is delaying the start of its Spring Auction as the COVID-19 fight goes on. The company told customers today that “with consideration for events happening around the country, and after hearing from an array of consignors we have decided to move our May auction dates back two weeks. While we had hoped that the dates could remain the same and that we would all be in a better place today, it seems that our original game-plan was too optimistic.
“The May auction will now commence on Friday, May 15th with an end date scheduled for Thursday, May 28th. This will also allow for our consignment deadline to be moved to the 20th of April. Please feel free to contact us via email or give us a call if you would like to discuss any items.”
The dream lives on but the timing could have been better. Just two weeks after Bob Lombardi opened AJ’s Quality Sports Cards and Memorabilia to Smithfield, RI, he was forced to shut down because of COVID-19.
He had just moved the shop there from North Providence and things had gotten off to a good start. It’s not his full-time job, so Lombardi is patiently waiting in hopes of getting things back up and running as soon as he gets the green light. He talked about the shop with the local newspaper.
Ever wonder what Vida Blue would have looked like on a 1971-72 Topps basketball design? Brooks Robinson? Now we know.
Topps’ latest Throwback Thursday set is a six-card series on a design of the first-ever NBA/ABA trading card set produced by Topps during the groooovy early ’70s.
Bo Bichette, Mike Yastrzemski, Nolan Arenado and Dustin May round out the six-card set. You can check it out here.
The first couple of weeks of Topps Now Turn Back the Clock card production has ranged from a low of 215 (Craig Biggio) to a high of 593 (Ken Griffey Jr.).
With a void of current moments to commemorate, Topps created the TBC cards to remember specific baseball moments in history on a daily basis. Tom Seaver was the latest release. The cards are available for 24 hours on the TBC page.
The recently launched Project 2020 cards, which feature popular young artist’s renditions of some classic Topps rookie cards have generally had print runs of 1,000-2,000. Artistic versions of several iconic players’ rookie cards are being sold on Topps.com with each available only for a short time.
Frank Thomas and Tony Gwynn are the two newest creations to go up.
You can check out the current offerings for Project 2020 here.
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