A slow day. Just throwing out an idea to get pro & con discussion. I think we are all concerned about put-together and/or 'corrected' carbines being hawked by unscrupulous parties somewhere down the road as valuable, as-issued factory originals, cheating the unaware, creating distrust in the hobby and perhaps diminishing the value of the true originals. Heck, we know it's going on more and more right now.

What do you think would be the possibility of a few knowledgeable and respected expert authentication firms or individuals like Ruth, Supica, Fjeistad (sp?), BrianQ and others marketing certification services providing a uniform professional assessment of a carbine (or any other collectible gun for that matter), for a reasonable fee, and including a written certification or opinion of its authenticity, with probable exceptions as applicable. This certification would follow the carbine and any piece without the certification would be purchased only on faith, and caveat emptor. For you lawyers (and 'sea lawyers') out there, I acknowledgre that my use of 'certification' and 'opinion ' may not be totally correct but you should get my intent.

We all know assembled carbines will fool a LOT of uneducated and inexperienced people, but I don't believe it is possible to assemble a carbine from parts and fool a truely knowledgable advanced collector (at least at this time). An authenticataion service may not stop the destuction of faith in the system that will eventually devalue the real thing but I think it might temper it a bit. In ten years I believe we will see five figure prices on truely original, as-issued carbines and that kind of money I beleive would warrant requiring and providing a dependable written certification. Any thoughts? ChipS
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