Should we wash dirty laundry in public or in private?

Understood and makes sense to a point. I'm guilty of asking stupid questions as are many others but sometimes it's a 'non snarky' answer that generates the most thought versus having to defend one self from the APPARENT attack. I like negative when it comes to something specific asked about a particular coin's aspects. That said though, it casts a shadow over the negative poster's advice and tends to be ignored altogether thus generating continued 'snarkiness' from the original poster. Sometimes I think that the supposed 'wiser and more knowledgable' (if you will) posters ought to go to their respective country clubs and stay away from the internet forums where they can be only around other like minded country clubbers. Their 'advice' only comes off as negativity most of the time so I don't know why they post to begin with. Ego probably has a lot to do with it I suppose. I've seen other forums where the traffic is more of 'everything' but friendlier overall (at least they appear that way) and I do gravitate there when the snarkiness gets to me but you're right, much of it has to do with repetition and something having been answered a hundred times prior. It gets aggravating on both sides I'm sure.

 

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I think you've nailed it @TommyP . Repetition. As a frequent reader and poster in the US coins forum, the number of times we see people posting every day modern clad asking if it's valuable is enough to drive someone crazy. It does get tiring, and can be hard to not be overly sarcastic when writing.

Wisdom does not necessarily make you a good teacher. A teacher not only requires knowledge, but patience. Not everyone has the patience needed. I get it. Doesn't necessarily make it right, but I get it. One thing we all have to try to remember is that at one time, we were all novices and had to learn somewhere!

 

Many of the problems are due to people forgetting the purpose of this site: to share and discuss coins, currency and bullion. Voicing one's idiotic political views and grudges against the world belong somewhere else.

 

Well stated. Always handle others as you would truly want to be handled (kinda the "Golden Rule"?). And, I like your perspective of your inexperienced self vs. your more experienced self.

 

I'm a total fan of calling-out a coin, publicly ... but "only" if the caller has solid back-up evidence (like they've already searched the fake database and positively found a match)

=> I am "not" a fan of some random coiner sayin' that a coin looks soft and suspect!! (that type of comment should be banned) ... nothing takes the fun out of coining quicker than thinking that you're wasting your time and cash on fakes!! (sadly, I've spent quite a bit of money proving that my coins are real, because some random dude pulled the coin fire-alarm!!)

... yah, unless you're actually smart-at-coins and you have definite proof that the OP-coin may be suspect, then I'd sit back and listen

 

Yup, done the same: money spent on what I knew, but had to gut-check - David Sear, et al can be well-spent money, but also mad-money spent on a random soft comment.

 

I am in favor of discussing suspicious aspects of anyone's coin, including my own. As others have said, it's a matter of wording.

Bad: "It looks fake"

Good: "It looks soft and the style is different from all others in archives. I think it may be modern".

If you hesitate to commit to an opinion, how will you learn? Most of us here are hobbyists. We are not experts, but by describing our concerns and seeing what others think, the participants and bystanders can all learn.

 

FAIL!! => no way ... hey TIF, unless you've gone and found a match on the database or found several examples on the database with similar "soft" similarities, then this is exactly what I hate ... one of us rooks, tossin' in their two cents where it doesn't belong (it makes me angry)

whoa-whoa-whao => yes, there are exceptions ... if the example is stupidly obvious



... whatev ...

I've gotten around that problem by buying from dudes that'll give me my money back if it ends-up being fake (I like you) ... I'm sure that we're probably saying the same thing => don't pull the fire-alarm!!

 

WHAT??????? Steve disagrees with TIF? Never. I must be mistaken. Maybe.

 

She's a coin-biotch!!



Just jokes ... she's my favourite







... again, I'm fairly sure that we're all saying the same thing ...

Ooops, it's dinner time ... gotta go!!

 

Actually, from a style standpoint that looks similar to many Celtics so i find no reason for suspicion

(just in case there is a newcomer who thinks what Steve showed is a coin... it is a paper mâché parody)

I'm not sure we are all saying the same thing. Don't pull the fire alarm, okay, but to express concerns in an educated and thoughtful way, based on knowledge picked up from this forum and other reading and experience? Please do!

PS-- love you too, Coinbro

 

I dont mind seeing fakes been called out, of course that also depends on the owner. There are lots to learn about fakes, the style, strike, design, and many others. Without it been discussed openly many others won't learn and may end up buying counterfeits.

btw. my first ancient before I got serious was a counterfeit. Forumers here showed me the details.

 

I know many of you also participate to some degree over on Forvm. I also know some of you avoid that place for reasons we do not need to discuss here. I try to post to the list that seems most likely to get a useful response or accomplish some good. That said, I believe Joe made a very interesting post on the subject we are discussing here:
http://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=18946.0
It is titled:
IF YOU DON'T KNOW ENOUGH TO GIVE ADVICE - DON'T

I might not have said it quite that way but I can't say I disagree with it either. He goes on to say: We don't need posts like "Looks fake to me, but I started collecting yesterday." Somewhere today we have a post showing a video by David Vagi who says that there is no one that is expert in all aspects of ancient coins. That is an understatement and I'll go a bit farther and say that anyone who disagrees with that statement is most likely a danger to himself and those with whom he deals.

We regularly get posts from people we do not know asking us to expertise coins from grade C photographs. If we don't give a simple thumbs up or thumbs down, we are accused of withholding expertise (assuming we have any). Often we can state without doubt that a coin is 100% fake. It is much more rare to be able to be that certain from the evidence presented that a coin is good. I have only been playing in this pool for a bit over 50 years. During that time I have not developed great expertise in more than a few areas of the hobby and could be considered as likely to be wrong as right in at least half of the subjects that make up our hobby. If you ask the right question, I am happy to answer but when the question is whether your fuzzy photo of a fuzzy coin is real (whatever that means), I prefer to fall back on Joe's all caps directive above now repeated below:
IF YOU DON'T KNOW ENOUGH TO GIVE ADVICE - DON'T

Most of our opinions here are worth what you paid for them. If that leaves you cold, I suggest that you, like Steve has done, send Mr. Sear or Mr. Vagi your questions with a check. They are paid to agonize over the yes, no and maybe-so coins and at least they get to see the thing. Of course you could take the other path and stop buying coins from sources that you do not know well enough to trust or that do not accept returns if you feel uneasy about the item. Buying, handling, seeing and looking at photos of a few thousand coins will make you ask questions that the rest of us will be happy to see but not necessarily more capable of providing that definitive answer we all would like to see. This is the state of my hobby; yours?

 

I am sometimes disturbed with the tendency some people have to quickly condemn coins. I think this can be especially harmful to those who are new to the hobby.

When I was new I was misled a few times by well meaning posters (not on this site) who had doubts about coins I purchased. Admitting that I was new and was relying upon the so called expert opinions of others I returned coins that were perfectly genuine instead of relying upon my own background research and reading. I have since learned to trust myself rather than rely blindly on the opinions of others. On a few occasions I lost out on some very rare coins because of the well meaning yet uninformed posts of others on forums.

What I have learned from forums such as this one is that there is no substitute for doing your own careful research. Asking for opinions after you have done the research is better in my opinion than asking others to do it for you.



To paraphrase from FAC ...If you do not know enough to offer an opinion then don't. As an expert in my professional field I am always very careful when sharing opinions because I do not want to steer anyone in the wrong direction. This is far more dangerous than merely saying nothing at all. After over a decade of study and almost 2 decades as a professional I can say that I am hesitant to give out professional opinions. The more that I know about a subject the more certain I am that I know nothing about that subject.

Edit: I just realized that I have covered some of the same ground as Doug.

 

You're not really Orfew are you? This is really Doug, right? Right?

 

Perhaps I'm misinterpreting Doug's post but I still think it is better (and of course acceptable) to politely express concerns about a coin if those concerns are accompanied by specific reasons-- not just "it looks fake to me". Now, if a member did voice concerns frequently, even if stating reasons, and if those reasons were repeatedly shown to be wrong, that would be a different problem.

Should those of us who aren't experts or numismatic professionals (me and almost all CoinTalk members) refrain from ever providing such comments when they are not solicited by the coin's owner? See above and below

Martin's question asked in the thread's title is whether we should disclose a fake (or concerns about possible fakery) publicly or in a private message. If the coin in question is indisputably fake and I were to message the owner, I'd want the owner to then add a post to the thread saying "I've learned that this coin is a modern forgery. Here is a matching cast fake as recorded in ForgeryNetwork (or wherever)." We'd want others to know that coin shown here in CoinTalk is fake, right? So why bother with the private message? Is purely to let the owner save face? I don't think having fallen for a fake is necessarily cause for embarrassment or shame. I bet most of us have bought a fake or two and maybe even still unknowingly own a fake or two. It's not an easy hobby.

If a coin cannot be definitively determined fake by photographs, and if there are some reasonable concerns, should that be voiced privately rather than publicly? Perhaps there is more reason to express those concerns privately but I still think it is okay to carefully express those concerns publicly. Readers also have some responsibility to assess credibility of a given person's opinion... as is the case with anything read online.

 

There are some very good points here made by many of you on this touchy subject.

Having purchased some fakes in my 30-year collecting lifetime, I generally support the idea of possible counterfeit coin being called-out. We can all benefit and learn.
We certainly do not want to hold back those among us more experienced from sharing their knowledge. That is one reason we come here for: to learn.

At the risk of repeating the many good points made in this thread, here is my opinion:

I Support being called-out if its is done based on the following premises.

1. First and foremost, if you do not know enough/have sufficient facts to support you concerns, don't voice them.

2. If you do, then please do it tactfully.
(yes, it does hurt and it is embarrassing to find out that coin you spent some precious grocery or holiday money on is a fake).


3. Give the collector the option to carry on the discussion in private, if the collector so wishes.
(some people may prefer it this way, and we must respect that).

 

I have to agree wholeheartedly. Also, this forum isn't policed the way that other one is and a new reader is not likely to know the expert from the opinionated newbie. If the knowledgeable members here feel they need to exercise restraint and hold back on posting publicly, God forbid we might end up seeing only the opinions of the unrestrained and uninformed.

 

PVBLIC

 

Agree a detailed explanation of why a coin is of dubious authenticity is far more useful than a simple condemnation.