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Posted By: Corey R. Shanus

You make some great points but as Barry said, we do not live in a perfect world and any system will have its imperfections. The guts of what I collect is photography. I can only tell you that I have never had a problem knowing what questions to ask, and I have never had anything but honest answers from all the auction houses. Also, here's another problem with expecting the main basis of description to be the catalog depiction. If that is to be our standard, what happens if, despite everyone's best good faith efforts, the end result still does not capture the essence of the item. Does the auction house then cancel/delay the auction out of fear of legal liability that the depiction is not an accurate enough portrayal of the items? This is not a hypothetical question. I know of actual instances. The point is that inconsistency between description and depiction will always occur despite sincere good faith efforts and there can never be eliminated some duty on the part of prospective bidders to make independent inquiry to ascertain the true condition of an item.