short addendum to my last post.

when doug allen was caught in that facemask swapping debacle, dave grob took an admirable stance and prioritized his ethics over profit. recently he posted on the mears site about his efforts and desire to enact an industry wide association/industry wide standards. some of his comments seem relevant to this discussion.

"Many still remain content to complain, but have show little interest in doing much else. If I really thought industry personnel outside of MEARS were serious about the issue of establishing industry wide standards, I would gladly travel to Cleveland or any where else they chose to meet on my dime and facilitate these discussions. I think a positive "baby step" would be something as simple as a standardized industry vocabulary...game used, team issued, etc...
Until that time, I will focus my efforts on what MEARS has done and is doing voluntarily since this remains an unregulated industry.

- Mandatory and public disclosure by all MEARS employees on the sale of their items either through an auction house or for sale via the MEARS Web Site.
- Use of worksheets so collectors can see why a grade was given.
- Archiving Letters of Opinion for future reference to include items deemed Unable to Authenticate.
- Ensuring the collecting public has both private and public means to contact us should issues or question arise.

Until such a time as the industry, outside of MEARS, decides upon collective standards and internal regulation, is forced to do so by legislative action, the only recourse or change agent will be the collecting public. I have made personal and professional decisions that have both inhibited my ability to work in this segment of the industry and add items to my own collection because there are just simply organizations and individuals I will not do business with."

i'm going to venture that the lack of interest from industry sources is intentional. that is, they likely feel that it's in their best interests not to have any standards, regulation, or a governing body. typically, such things are at odds with profit. why impede the gravy train? where's the money in ethics or standards? most times, such things are established by governments for the best interests of constituents, not by private business whose sole interest in often in profit. beyond simply doing the right thing, there's no real incentive for an auction house or authenticator to go for what grob is suggesting. despite all of their yapping about integrity and ethics, many of their actions have shown they have little to no genuine interest in such things.

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it."

there's too much easy money to be made in this industry for ethics to get in the way.

rudy.