Ended auction, WWII or repro?

[Badger]

No, because the last thing we want to do is provide the humpers and fakers with a handy-dandy reference source of genuine items so they can correct the flaws in their "products", making fakes even harder to detect.

If you have a question about the authenticity of an item the best thing to do is post pictures here and ask for opinions.

I think I agree with you, but with the exception of the venue type, aren't we actually saying the same thing.

Just so I'm clear ...

You're saying that the way to handle it is for a novice buyer to post good enough quality pics of a rifle with markings that they want to buy, so that other members (presumably more expert), can view them and say the rifle is faked or not? If the answer is yes it's authentic, then aren't the pics posted to get the answer now available to potential fakers anyway, along with a lot of of detailed commentary from members authenticating them?

Wouldn't it be better to completely ban posting any pics of correct pieces in any forums, if your point is to attempt to hide the authentic material from fakers, so that they never know what the real thing looks like? With all due respect, isn't this similar to an argument that says let's ban guns and we'll prevent gun murders?

Am I missing something....

Also, isn't relying upon the good graces of the right experts being available at the time the member is seeking the information a bit hit and miss, especially if the member is wanting to bid on an auction which may be closing soon?

BTW, here's something I said in another thread on the subject of fakes and collecting...

Personally, I'm in favor of openly publishing opinions about questionable material and links to auctions or sales that may contain them ....

Here's why …

Back in the 1960's and 70's, I used to seriously collect old British military medals that were impressed on the rims named to individual soldiers. The material could get quite expensive when you're talking things like "Charge of the Light Brigade", "Battle of Waterloo" etc....

Unfortunately, fakers started producing stuff that was very hard to distinguish from the originals and in my opinion, seriously affected the marketplace and collector confidence. It got so bad, I sold off almost all my collection and got out of the hobby. Still have a "Waterloo" medal and a few Boer War medals, but the rest went...

We never had the Internet in those days and if we did, I bet it would have helped a lot of collectors avoid ending up with fakes, if they had a place they could have posted pics of an expensive item for some of the more experienced collectors to comment upon, before they bought or bid an auction.

Just my opinion, but I'd like to see a "Counterfeit Forum" and have seriously thought about opening up one in the Knowledge Library, where links to threads about fakery could be accumulated from around the net and concentrated in a single venue.

So, in my opinion for what it's worth, having been there and done that with a different collecting field, you are not going to stop fakers by thinking that hiding legitimate pieces from their view or banning their appearance anywhere, will stop their fraudulent ventures. It's about enforcement and exposing the pieces that they've gone to great lengths to fake, so they are publicly available for viewing to the masses, young and old. Hence, my thoughts that a "Counterfeits Forum" has more of a valid place in our gun collecting world, exposing the fake pieces and fakery oriented vendors, then relying on hiding our collections from them.

I'm willing to reconsider my opinion on this subject with an open mind. So, I'm listening if there's a better way to handle this problem, which I think will simply continue to grow as these collectibles get more expensive. My only concern is protecting new collectors from making expensive mistakes in their journey to becoming knowledgeable, so for me, it's about good solid reference materials, whether they be in the form of books, original manuals, magazine articles, electronic on-line articles and gun specific forums in order to interact with other collectors.

Just my two cents ..

Regards,
Badger