Grey,
Sure I'm reading between the lines... neither you or anyone else are
giving us much else to do but read between the lines right now. I
appreciate that you were one of the first people to realize there was
"something not right" about one of these high end fakes and have been
instrumental in advancing the investigation (and I have credited you
with that before). But don't yank our chain, OK? I didn't say Heritage
suffered a great financial loss, I said some "big players" have and that
insurance companies for operations like Heritage may have covered some
of those losses. Obviously I don't really know, because no one has
released specific details. But unless I have somehow missed it, you have
not categorically stated that none of the numerous now-known fakes ever
passed through Heritage's hands into those of collectors.
If I'm wrong about that, please correct me in no uncertain terms, with
no mincing of words. Saying Heritage did not suffer a financial loss
(meaning your insurance covered it), is not the same thing as saying
Heritage never inadvertently sold any fake posters.
Right now everyone involved is trying to keep the details and extent of
this scandal under wraps in the name of National Security... oops... I
mean because it might somehow compromise the investigation and hinder
the FBI in prosecuting the guilty parties... right :)
There are all kinds of "loss" and customer confidence is a big one that
will affect all sellers. Rather than issuing placating statements like
those we would expect from a political figure, I would like to see
Heritage publicly taking the lead in coming up with industry-wide
proposals to address this issue in the future.
And saying you will subject posters to close scrutiny is not what I
mean. After all, they were *always* subjected to close scrutiny before,
weren't they? And now we've seen that close scrutiny isn't enough. I
mean let us know how you and the rest of the poster-selling world are
going to do something besides carry on business as usual, leaving the
burden of determining true authenticity to the buyer after he has forked
over the big bucks.
If Heritage is the leader in the business, then act like it. Let the
public know exactly what you intend to do about this problem going
forward and how you intend to enlist the support and cooperation of all
the restorers and backers and experts in a coordinated effort.
-- JR
Smith, Grey - 1367 wrote:
Richard
JR reads between the lines! His statement is untrue in regards to a loss to
Heritage due to fakes.
On Oct 2, 2009, at 9:24 AM, "Richard Evans"
<<mailto:[email protected]>[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>
wrote:
JR, I believe you just outed Heritage.
On 2 Oct 2009, at 07:35, James Richard wrote:
3) Some of the Really Big Players got hurt this time. Heritage and other
auction houses/retailers had to refund a lot of money to customers who bought
fakes from them. Maybe they had insurance to help with the refunds, maybe they
didn't, but it still hurt them financially and also hurt their reputations and
customer confidence. They should now be willing to back the formation of a
guild to define restoration standards and practices and *identification marks*
of who did the work so it could be quickly checked on.
They should also be willing to encourage genuine experts to examine their very expensive items and
provide "Opinions of Authenticity" to help restore buyer confidence. Note that I call
them "Opinions" of Authenticity because it is getting harder for even long-time
participants in this field to identify the best of the fakes. After the John Davis fiasco, I doubt
anyone would be willing to sign their name on 100% Guarantee anymore, but a solid opinion with
specifics delineated would still be better than nothing, which is what we have on most very
expensive items right now.
Grey is entitled to his opinion that there is no real problem in catching
fakes, but history has not borne that out in recent years and besides, the
public perception being what it is now, if Heritage expects to keep setting
those record prices they are simply going to have to offer the buyers something
more substantial in the way of authentication on high-end items than they have
in the past.
Or maybe not. Maybe it will all go back to business-as-usual once again. In
which case we can all look forward to even bigger scandals in the future -- and
declining realized prices for genuine high-end and middle-tier authentic movie
posters.
It is now in *everyone's* best interest to DO SOMETHING real and practical to help insure
nothing of this magnitude happens again. Just making reassuring statements that the
"sky is not falling" won't cut it. A 19% buyers premium on a $30,000 poster
sale is $5,700 bucks -- they should be willing to spend a few hundred to properly
authenticate it before offering it to the customers they are asking to trust them.
A money-back guarantee is a great thing. But what good does it do you if you
end up buying a fake and never find out about it? Or don't find out about it
for 10 or 20 years... or until your children go to sell it after you've passed
it on to them in your estate?
-- JR
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