Requiring official approval of condemnation from
acsearch (and removing condemnations that do not meet with official approval amounts to the same thing) seems untenable as it would potentially put
acsearch in the position of potentially condemning coins from
auction houses that it has to maintain agreements with in order to keep its service going, which I suspect functionally would keep
acsearch from allowing almost any notes (other than officially withdrawn lots and a few coins where everyone eventually agreed there was an issue). So while there is a danger that, unmoderated, condemnations may be overbroad, the danger is that when moderated condemnations will be vastly under represented, and people will not be put on guard to make their own determinations (and will have a tendency to assume that presence in a pre-existing
auction validates the authenticity of a coin). Joe is more insulated from that in that while he may do business with
his peer sellers, the entire basis of Forum's business is not premised on their
good will
A moderated context would even tend to lead to underrepresentation of reports of a coin being withdrawn, as well. So, in a moderated context, I might share information that the
EID MAR lot 2933 in Dorotheum Kunstabteilung 08 Jun 1956 (
Spring 128 ) is listed in my copy of that
catalog as [FAELSCHUNG/Entfaell] (stamped into the text of my copy of the
catalog, backed up by the fact that the coin does not appear in the PRL). But if the stamp is not in every copy of the
catalog (which seems feasible), then even this objective observation is not necessarily readily separately verifiable (if for example the stamp was only in day of
auction copies if it was withdrawn at the last minute and if most copies out there pre-date that). So if this
coin shows up on
acsearch, and if that information was not in the listing on
acsearch due to a source copy being used that doesn't have the stamp, someone might look at the age of the
auction, that it's
part of a very old
collection, that Andrew's page on
auction catalogs lists the
auction as containing an
EID MAR, and never consider that the coin might be questionable (realistically in this example, of course, an
EID MAR buyer is likely to spend the cash after purchase to double check the coin with an expert after acquiring, so this may apply more realistically to other coins, although being put on guard in the first place might keep the coin from having further results that make it seem legitimate if it is not).
A flood of bad information would be bad, but a drought of information is also bad; on the whole, I would prefer that more questioning is included rather than less.