Message:

<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Numbers, post: 1319137, member: 11668&quot;]I guess it depends on whether you&#039;re thinking of it as &quot;research&quot;, or thinking of it as &quot;a question&quot;.&nbsp; Yes, random Internet forums are probably a step or two below Wikipedia on the research scale <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie11" alt=":rolleyes:" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" /> , but they&#039;re still not a bad place to get a rough idea of what you&#039;ve got when you&#039;re starting with no idea at all.</p><p><br /></p><p>Too often, when I was new to collecting, my questions were met with answers like &quot;go buy this $75 book if you want that information&quot;.&nbsp; Nowadays the equivalent seems to be &quot;go pay $30 to this TPG if you want to know whether that note is real&quot;.&nbsp; Sure, big thick reference books are useful, and TPGs are useful, and if you stick around the collecting hobby for long you&#039;ll probably have plenty of dealings with both.&nbsp; But if we want any newbies to stick around, we&#039;d do well not to leave them with the impression that it costs tens of dollars to get a simple question answered.&nbsp; We all had lots of simple questions when we were new, and I can&#039;t be the only one who would&#039;ve gone broke at those rates.&nbsp; <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie9" alt=":eek:" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" /></p><p><br /></p><p>Whether or not any of the fakers post in these forums, they&#039;re surely free to read them.&nbsp; I don&#039;t see that as a reason not to share what information we have.&nbsp; By that sort of logic, nobody should ever publish a numismatic book or article, lest they help the fraudsters develop better frauds.</p><p><br /></p><p>I don&#039;t think any of the world&#039;s leading experts on currency post on this forum (though I could be wrong, given the anonymity of the Internet).&nbsp; Still, there&#039;s enough knowledge here that we can help to answer plenty of questions from the general public.&nbsp; We may as well be kind enough to do so, when the general public happens to drop by....&nbsp; When these newbies start asking questions that nobody here can begin to answer, then we&#039;ll *have* to send them to the experts.&nbsp; And that&#039;s when we&#039;ll know they&#039;re not newbies any more.&nbsp; <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie6" alt=":cool:" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" />[/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