Message:

<p>[QUOTE=&quot;DonnaML, post: 6628586, member: 110350&quot;]Thank you. Wise words. Please understand that I&#039;m not really intimidated by too many people in this world. As someone who was a practicing litigation attorney for more than 35 years before I retired, I have confidence that I can hold my own with just about anyone in an argument! But I&#039;m not here to argue; I&#039;m here to enjoy myself. And I very much don&#039;t enjoy being attacked, especially for perfectly innocent and well-intentioned posts. This was the second time this happened to me in the last month or two. The first time -- believe&nbsp; it or not -- was for posting a single photo of all my Roman Republican coins together in a tray, without also posting a second photo showing the other sides of those coins! At least in that case, the person didn&#039;t make the attack <i>ad hominem</i> and soon apologized, and I hold no grudge. In this case, I know the person will never apologize, given his level of self-righteousness derived from his being a &quot;famous&quot; and elite numismatist.</p><p><br /></p><p>Even beyond that, there was a&nbsp; third long-time member who attacked me quite vociferously a number of months ago, in a private message, for mentioning publicly here, with respect to a particular Marc Antony denarius I had purchased that he&#039;d kindly told me by PM was fake, that there were fakes out there by the same forger with different legionary numbers. Despite the fact, as I pointed out to him, that <u>he had disclosed the exact same fact himself right here on Coin Talk about six months previously</u>! And despite the fact that I respected his request not to disclose publicly the signs that made it possible for him to tell that the coin is fake -- even though I consider that stance to be unethical or close to it, in placing the highly unlikely possibility that some forger in Bulgaria is going to be alerted to improve his methods through a post on Coin Talk, over the interests of consumers/collectors in being warned about how to avoid purchasing fakes. Again, an example of elitism, thinking it&#039;s OK for the <i>cognoscenti </i>to know certain facts about coins, but verboten to educate the general rabble of collectors to those facts even though it would protect them from buying fakes.&nbsp; (I believe this position is rooted at least in part in self-interest: as long as these collectors are still able to discern fakes, and forgers aren&#039;t educated to perfect their craft so that their products are undetectable -- as farfetched as it may be to think forgers are reading Coin Talk -- such elite collectors don&#039;t care at all how many thousands of ordinary collectors are deceived. Yes, anyone can go through hundreds of fake coin reports to see if there&#039;s a similar example -- assuming they&#039;re even suspicious in the first place -- but that&#039;s a lot harder than actually knowing what reveals a particular type of coin as a fake. Imagine telling consumer advocates that they&#039;re not allowed to disclose what makes any other product a fake or knock-off!)</p><p><br /></p><p>But that&#039;s all just academic to this particular incident: according to this guy, even though I <u>did</u> keep all those details confidential, I wasn&#039;t even allowed to disclose something more general that <u>he had publicly mentioned himself</u>! I just don&#039;t qualify to convey such information. Oh, and in case you&#039;re reading this, Mr. Other Elite Collector, and are thinking of claiming it didn&#039;t happen that way, I saved the private messages!</p><p><br /></p><p>So, TLDR: the attitude of some collectors isn&#039;t worth my disputing anymore, only to be attacked. This site has been a welcome respite from the pandemic for me for the last year, and I don&#039;t enjoy being insulted. Especially with highly-gendered insults about being an awful, horrible gossiper who supposedly can&#039;t keep secrets, and, therefore, will never be admitted to the inner circle. One of my favorite things about my other primary pastime (genealogical/family history research, especially European Jewish research) is that there are and always have been at least as many women as men involved, and this kind of thing just doesn&#039;t happen.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

Your name or email address:

Do you already have an account?

• No, create an account now.
• Yes, my password is:
• Forgot your password?

Stay logged in