Anyone in the movie authentication business, who has a genuine wish to
rise above the level of rank amateur, merely has to search out people
with the relevant knowledge for at least some basic pointers. (It
isn't difficult, thing called Google.)
Like this chap, who was recommended to me today:
Peter Bower
Forensic paper historian and paper analyst
Peter Bower, forensic paper historian and paper analyst,specialises in
the examination and analysis of papers for purposes of dating,
attribution, authentication and usage. He has written many reports and
consultation documents on papers used in works of art, banknotes,
bonds, books etc.
He has published two books on Turner's papers and given many papers at
various conferences including the The Broad Spectrum and Looking at
Paper.
That is, if people are serious.
On 5 Oct 2009, at 15:23, allen day wrote:
or rather ... Oh, puuhleeeze ...
Howdy y'all,
Some words about the call to arms, leadership, fakes, and 'other
headlines' that will soon soon become yesterday's bird cage liner:
Anyone can tell a fake when one has the (known) real McCoy and the
questionable item side by side for comparison; there is not some
superhuman sixth sense. A real expert can divine a pseudo-poster
without visual aids.
I would be astounded if any insurance entity would gladly recompense
anyone or any company for not practicing due diligence ... or I
could be wrong ... insurance entities DO have a clause that states
that claims are justified for experts "needing glasses".
This PiH dust-up is really no different than the fakes coming out of
the northeast for many years with one difference ... the number of
zeroes in the poster's supposed value. Many people in "the industry"
or "the hobby" have known about the rochester boys .. and what has
been done? Zip, nada. Look for the same when the dust settles; there
will be no truth commissions, no boards of inquiry.
There will be no consortium of restorers (or dealers or
professionals) who may craft a restoration grading value / scale or
poster value or code of ethics or anything else ... one can argue
for many reasons, i.e., logistics, enforceable business practices,
agreeable grading templates, etc ... but there is really only one
reason ... economic incentive. A coordinated effort will not occur,
because there is not enough $$$ to spread around, and the real
people who should be included are too busy (and smart) to be
included in a new morass.
Case in point ... I collect, buy, and sell carnival, jadeite, and
other vintage glass. Recently, I bought an item ... http://search.ebay.com/280391289380
... that looks good to the naked eye, but under 30x magnification,
it is obvious that it is bogus. I returned the item to the seller,
(stating my reasons), and then emailed two prominent sellers on eBay
regarding a possible tsunami of fakes. My response: **crickets**
Sooo , there seems to be quite a few 'high dollar' entries entering
the market in the last few years? ... Yeah, maybe there are and all
of them could be fakes, if not for:
1. people die (and these items are not buried as well)
2. neophytes are still astounded as to an accumulated poster's value
and they are absolutely willing to sell grandpa's attic stuff when
he is entering the nursing home
3. it's the economy, stupid
I could rant further, but my wife is looking over my shoulder with
her hands on her hips and wondering aloud why I'm wasting my time,
when I've got an absolutely beautiful 5 month old baby to indulge,
instead. Sage advice ... bye.
ad
--- On Mon, 10/5/09, dsonesheets <[email protected]> wrote:
From: dsonesheets <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [MOPO] Losses and Leadership
To: [email protected]
Date: Monday, October 5, 2009, 1:41 AM
Fuckin A right.
Pardon my French, but when are people going to stop treating this as
damage control issue while saying ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about what steps
they're going to be taking to prevent this from happening again? I'm
ready to drop off this list, because it seems no one besides JR has
the balls to come out with what no one else is saying because they
don't have the brains to understand what's going on in the first
place.
BTW, I received ONE whole response to my letter about my letter three
years ago, and it was JR again.
Pathetic.
On Sunday, October 4, 2009, James Richard
<[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> 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] <javascript:_e({}, 'cvml', '[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
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Visit the MoPo Mailing List Web Site at www.filmfan.com
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>
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>
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>
>
--
Steve Zammar
[email protected]
owner, ds|onesheets
303/478-3973
Visit the MoPo Mailing List Web Site at www.filmfan.com
___________________________________________________________________
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Send a message addressed to: [email protected]
In the BODY of your message type: SIGNOFF MOPO-L
The author of this message is solely responsible for its content.
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___________________________________________________________________
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Send a message addressed to: [email protected]
In the BODY of your message type: SIGNOFF MOPO-L
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