Originally Posted by brokenrobot
You sure? Call one of them up, tell them you'd like to sell them some rare, hard-to-find antiques with no provenance, and see how well they react.
Remember, when you sell using an auction house, you are not selling it
to them, you are selling it
thru them. So no, if I wish to sell something from my collection thru a local brick-&-mortor auction house, there is really no reason for them to ask the origin, how long I have owned it, what I paid for it, etc.
A pawn broker is technically different from an auction house. In this case, they are essentially purchasing the item. If you return, they sell it back to you at a profit. If you do not, they sell it for what the market will bear. It this case, they need to protect themselves from being the purveyor of stolen goods.
I agree, however, that when someone has 50 of an item, and it is being sold (new) for pennies on the dollar, it should raise some red flags with both the venue (ebay), and potential buyers. But is it practical to expect ebay to investigate the source of goods for literally millions of auctions taking place each week? Maybe, sellers should have to sign a disclosure statement listing source and references when quantity or price meet some reasonable limit of questionability?