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Why anonymity is not an option
Collectors of Pre-War baseball cards are familiar with the website T206museum.com This site has been around for years, offering information, including valuations on the famous 1909-11 T02 set and rare printing variations. What has long been vexing to T206 collectors is that the owner/writer/publisher of the site refused to say who he was, even to those who communicated privately. The website and information was from an unknown, anonymous source. Well, it has recently been uncovered that the owner has been forging rare overprinted T206s, selling them, submitting them to graders and consinging them to big auctions-- all while writing these informative aricles. For those who don’t follow the cards, overprints (extra prints), variations and errors can command top dollar when rare.
This is an example when a magazine or website is about delicate material, authentication, critiquing others or such, the readers should not only expect, but demand to know the identity, motive and expertise background from the writer/publisher. To readers relying on the information, anonymity should not be an option or acceptable. It can’t be idly dismissed that the writer names others while refusing to divulge his own name. One must ask, if he's hiding his name, what else is he hiding? If the information is so reliable and spot on accurate, then why does he refuse to his name associated with it?
Also note that the T206 website was not considered crackpot or off the wall. Rather it was used by seasoned collectors as an informational source. The number one complaint, or noted idiosyncracy, about the site was the owner bent over backwards to keep anonymous. This is considering that about all other collectors and dealers who love to get due credit for their articles, websites, photo galleries posted online. If a normal collector writes a good and well researched article about H & B bats, he will either put his name on top of the article on his website or insist that publisher assigns his name to the article. Surpressing one's name for a good well researched article is not only rare, but rather strange.
In the below link you will find, amongst other threads on other subjects, recent threads on the forgery and the website:
link
Collectors of Pre-War baseball cards are familiar with the website T206museum.com This site has been around for years, offering information, including valuations on the famous 1909-11 T02 set and rare printing variations. What has long been vexing to T206 collectors is that the owner/writer/publisher of the site refused to say who he was, even to those who communicated privately. The website and information was from an unknown, anonymous source. Well, it has recently been uncovered that the owner has been forging rare overprinted T206s, selling them, submitting them to graders and consinging them to big auctions-- all while writing these informative aricles. For those who don’t follow the cards, overprints (extra prints), variations and errors can command top dollar when rare.
This is an example when a magazine or website is about delicate material, authentication, critiquing others or such, the readers should not only expect, but demand to know the identity, motive and expertise background from the writer/publisher. To readers relying on the information, anonymity should not be an option or acceptable. It can’t be idly dismissed that the writer names others while refusing to divulge his own name. One must ask, if he's hiding his name, what else is he hiding? If the information is so reliable and spot on accurate, then why does he refuse to his name associated with it?
Also note that the T206 website was not considered crackpot or off the wall. Rather it was used by seasoned collectors as an informational source. The number one complaint, or noted idiosyncracy, about the site was the owner bent over backwards to keep anonymous. This is considering that about all other collectors and dealers who love to get due credit for their articles, websites, photo galleries posted online. If a normal collector writes a good and well researched article about H & B bats, he will either put his name on top of the article on his website or insist that publisher assigns his name to the article. Surpressing one's name for a good well researched article is not only rare, but rather strange.
In the below link you will find, amongst other threads on other subjects, recent threads on the forgery and the website:
link
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