"READ !
http://forum.treasurenet.com/authenticity "
Jeff, thank you for posting this. I've been reading on the sidelines and learning far more from this one thread about the collecting of confederate relics, and as well, about the possibilities of them being faked and how specifically this can be done, then I ever would know otherwise and I thank treasurenet for access to this valuable knowledge.
Fortunately, the subject of authenticity was brought up originally by the poster himself in his first thread; and I would assume, as it is in our courts of law, once a subject has been opened for debate it is not only fair, but responsible to discuss varying opinions for the benefit of everyone. That seems to be consistent with the rules?
If that's not the case then we are left with the following in such situations: (which might be cause to see if there is a means where treasurenet can both maintain the rules, and provide some avenue where varying opinion backed by proven fact can be voiced
1) Instances where potentially tens of thousand of dollars worth of artifacts are displayed on a public forum as genuine.
2) Where the only input a poster may leave would be either to not respond, or to reinforce through lack of knowledge that they were genuine.
3) Where knowledgeable members have no means to educate unsuspecting collectors, who in fact are the majority here.
Such a situation leaves treasurenet in the postion of not remaining neutral, but actually potentially in some cases promoting the notion some non-genuine relics are in fact genuine, to the detriment of us all.
Maybe in the future Treasurenet can get around this problem by creating another forum, such as what we have in the "what is it", "what's it worth" etc, but have this one called "fakes, counterfeits, and reproductions". (I've always wondered why there wasn't such a forum).
It would provide an opportunity to not only construct what would surely be a vast resource of knowledge; but could also be a means to post generic counterfeits and reproductions in harmony with what might appear on this or other threads, and do so without attacking anyone's credibility, and without directly involving the thread which might be in question.