Nobody asked, but here's my .02 anyway. Reading many of the threads in question, I can honestly say there is plenty of blame to go around and plenty of barbs coming from all sides. I believe the problem is we have a couple of autograph camps here on the board. One is a bit more, for lack of a better term, advanced and is more interested in the really high end forgeries...ones that could possibly fool some of the experts. The other camp is trying to expose the crap that comes out on ebay and CC and trying to put a stop to it. With that said, there's obviously a difference of opinion on how much information needs to be provided on why an autograph is bad. I understand that nobody is required to give up the family secrets, but you also have to understand that the purpose of a board like this is to discuss and then learn from those discussions about our hobby. Telling me to do my homework doesn't cut it in this day and age when there's so much crap out there including "authenicated" exemplars that are no good. Many of us have a WIDE range of collecting interests going on at the same time, and to think that we can be experts on all autographs is a bit naive.
All three of the major players in the discussed threads have at one time or another been very helpful to me. David has responded to every request I've had about certain autographs and given me his honest detailed opinion.
I have been purchasing from Richard since the late 80's and have had him autheniticate items as well. Chris's videos and notifications here on the board have helped ebay remove questionable items, although again, he has alienated some people by his lack of explaination. With that said, he also has been very informative on some threads where we were discussing the difference of how autographs look on balls as opposed to on paper. I found the fact that he actually went out and made several attempts to sign his name on multiple spots on a ball and then report the differences to be the type of info that makes this board great.
So what's the answer? I don't know. Maybe it's just live and let live ,or maybe it's having a couple of long running threads...one for ebay/CC type of stuff out there, and another for high end (Babe Ruth type) forgeries.
I've been collecting since the 70's, and I do know that it's getting harder and harder every day, especially when multiple experts can't decide on what's good or bad. I just want to be able to be armed with enough info to make an informed purchase during the times I want to stray from the Simons, Corcorans, Stinsons, Averitts, and keatings.
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