Quote:
Originally Posted by Maddog
I am paid to express my opinion on various Tax matters. If I give a BS opinion based on no factual support you can bet your Wagner I will have both legal, governmental and professional issues up the wazu.
These clowns hold themselves out to be professionals and charge for their opinions so fine, treat them as such. If other professionals need to pay fees for licenses and are required to have continuing education so as to maintain their licenses do the same with authenticators.
It is a complete joke that anyone can be allowed to charge for an opinion and then when they're wrong cry that "It's just an opinion". You charged for it, you were wrong, now face a penalty.
If you can't authenticate without a license and you face suspension or forfeiture of the license you can bet your butt they will be more careful with their "opinions".
|
This is all true, but it is MUCH simpler to prove negligence on a tax accountant's part. Would you like to go into court and PROVE negligence on the part of a TPA, beyond a reasonable doubt? A lot of people hold on to the notion that "an autograph is either real or it isn't". That fact is beautiful in its simplicity, but it is unfortunately irrelevant because it is unknowable. All we have are opinions and opinions of the people giving opinions, and anyone unwilling to admit that or accept less than 100% certainty in an item's authenticity should probably collect something else. After all, what has Nash done in his blog except say that there are "several experts, dealers and collectors we respect" who disagree with the alphabets (without even naming said experts/dealers/collectors)?
Furthermore, there are plenty more autographs that have been certed that unnamed experts say are fake (and they are probably right). We have also all heard numerous complaints of instances where IP autos, ones that the submitter saw signed with their own eyes, were rejected by the alphabets. So I am inclined to ask: what level of accuracy would you like to see demanded of these authenticators? If it's perfection, we are going to have to make authentication of autographs an illegal act.
Or we could individually choose not to pay for it.
This is a much slipperier notion than most collectors realize or want to admit.