Bad Faith Questions, Bona Fide Answers

[PMah]

"Jimminy Cricket", as people used to say.  So many of the members of this board give information in good faith to obviously bad faith postings, it really boggles the mind.
    Although I continuously beat the drum on this, let me make a suggestion: 
       BEFORE you respond to an authentication post, click on the name and see how many of the prior posts are for "ID Help" or "Authentic or Not" and then look at how many fake coins the person posted.
    There are bad faith people testing their fakes on this board.  Sorry to say it, but it is true.
    Seriously -- what is the reason you feel compelled to offer opinions on authenticity to people who sign up only to ask about authenticity?  If a contributor has a track record, even if the person is asking "newbie" questions, and then asks bona fide authenticity questions, that's one thing.  But it is the year 2022 and everyone reading this board has internet access.  And this board has many very well-crafted threads about how to approach coin collecting.
     Really, why should you tell someone who has never posted a real coin or a real question whether a coin is fake "by eye"?   
   If the person already bought the coin -- which is a requirement of the board posting rules that is often ignored by posters and responders, and easily faked anyway -- and they bought a fake coin from a "really reliable coin dealer that my grandfather likes in SouthEastNoNameVille" -- then frankly, if they are telling the truth, then they are "F'ed" anyway: a crook is not going to return the money and everyone knows that; ebay does not enforce any rules against fly-by-night clowns.  The NFSL would not exist if ebay did.
       I respectfully suggest that the same amount of research and analytic skepticism that goes into your personal research should be applied to the question as much as the response.  Perhaps these internet fakers would at least have less "constructive criticism" on which to base their campaigns.

[Sap]

Coin forums, such as this one, are always a balancing act. We want to educate newcomers to the forum and newbies to the hobby - that is kind of the whole point of the forum. We must be a counterbalance to the forces of the Facebook coin group echo chamber, where such a newbie is likely to be told their coin is 100% genuine. This, at least in part, is why some people come here with nothing but fakes. Another source of "innocent fakes" is the genuine tourist, who genuinely don't know that the nice people at the gates of Ephesus aren't selling genuine coins because it never occurred to them that selling genuine ancient coins to tourists in Turkey might be illegal.

At the same time, I agree that we don't really want the forum to become a university for fake-makers, to teach them how to perfect their art and make more convincing fakes.

I have always taken the attitude that yes, we should call out a fake when it is posted on a forum - because the alternative is that the person posting it will assume it is genuine until and unless told otherwise, and a fake-seller could then go on to use an unopposed claim to authenticity here on the forum as evidence that their coin is genuine. But we should be more circumspect about explaining exactly why we know a fake coin is fake. Ideally, we should be calling out the indicators of fakeness that a counterfeiter is going to find difficult to eliminate from their products - evidence of casting, for example; someone making and selling cast fakes cannot eliminate such evidence without totally changing their method of manufacture.

[djmacdo]

Indeed, both posters make good points.  I am amazed by the number of posters, usually on their first post, who swear the coin must be real since they dug it up themselves.  If sincere, and that is always a question, they forget that even a tourist fake or a key ring ornament can be dropped and find its way down in the soil.  Many years ago I saw a spoon with a date in the early twentieth century (right on the spoon) come out of the ground two feet down.  Soil is often disturbed, even to some depth.

[Joe Sermarini]

It is NOT correct to suggest that people should hesitate to answer questions about authenticity here for the reasons above. 

For the most part, fake makers already know what is wrong with their fakes. They usually either cannot do better or don't care to do better. Most fakes only need to be good enough to sell to someone who does not know better. I think it is unlikely that fake makers are testing coins here. It is much more likely that some eBay seller might check a coin they know is fake to see if it might pass, but even that, they usually don't really care.

If you think someone is testing coins they know are fake, report them to a moderator or to me. Please do not challenge them or hesitate to answer if you have wisdom to share.

Similarly, if you think someone is trying to authenticate a coin they plan to purchase, report them to a moderator or to me. Please do not challenge them or hesitate to answer if you have wisdom to share.

[Ken W2]

Hey folks:  I hope everyone is well.  It's coincidental (to me) this thread opened yesterday because I considered starting one or sending Joe a PM the gist of which would have been-- what's with the proliferation of fake inquiries and ID requests in the last few to several months by new members?  It did not occur to me that some may be fake makers, and thus we shouldn't help them.  I thought, and still think, the balancing act is how do we encourage interest in and newcomers to the hobby by sharing knowledge, but at the same time encourage them to "do the work" needed to develop as a collector.  To be sure, in the roughly nine years I've been a member, I've asked for ID help or made inquires about possible fakes many times, but it would be a rare, rare occasion I did so without first pouring over ERIC II, RSC, Sear CRI, the FORVM fake coin reports, Wildwinds, and/or acsearch to try to figure it out myself; and, I think doing that kind of work has been helpful.   

I submit that being circumspect about asking for help and asking only after one has done some work on their own shows respect and appreciation for FORVM's membership as a resource, and in the long run will make you a better collector too.

I also am guarded about giving help, but not for the reason(s) discussed above.  I'm still developing as an ancients collector-- perhaps achieving a journeyman level-- so I generally limit my responses to fake and ID inquiries which have no or only a few responses by more experienced members and of course only when I think I have at least part of the answer.  There is no reason to pile on when others have already given the answer.                     

[PMah]

The phrase "caveat emptor" is often quoted as a unilateral expression -- that the buyer should "beware", as if one should expect to be fooled by a seller and that the buyer must live with the consequences with no recourse and suck up the cost of their credulity.
     But it literally means that the buyer should be cautious -- aware -- hesitate -- and do research about the facts and one's rights, rather than jump at the opportunity.  It was originally an English law concept about real estate, not about retail transactions for personal property, because land tended to have problems that only manifested themselves later, often after many other people endorsed a transaction.

Personally and professionally, I am reluctant to allow other people to be fooled when I sense that someone else is trying to fool them.  Con games are not presented as con games -- trust is established by a series of seemingly valid interactions that gradually test limits and build credibility until the point of desired profitability has been reached.  As I have been in the anti-fraud business, as it were, for decades, I don't think we need to prove that a particular hand dealt in "Three Card Monte" was a scam to warn people away from it, because "Three Card Monte" is known to be a scam.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-card_Monte   

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/31/nyregion/one-of-the-last-3-card-monte-dealers-declares-game-over.html

I respect the NFSL and Fake Coin Reports efforts for informational purposes.  Since the host of this board has negated the premise of my post, which is to encourage people to "hesitate", I can't bridge that gap, and so feel free to delete it.

[Joe Sermarini]

I have not entirely negated the premise of your post. Members should report suspicious behavior. I frankly haven't noticed any, but I haven't looked for it. If anyone is acting suspiciously, I want to know.

I want the decisions to be made by moderators or by me. Members should not be burdened with deciding to be helpful or not to be helpful.