"Reid Goldsborough" wrote in message
...
This year marks exactly ten years of my beginning coin collecting
again. Time for a retrospective, some analysis. Read at your own
risk. This will be long (winded). Consider this post a medium-length
magazine article, though more personal and less focused. Though this
includes some dealer criticism, and some dealers may consider it
anti-dealer, it also includes some dealer praise, and I consider it,
overall, pro-dealer, pro-collector, and pro-numismatics. This may be
a prelude to something else, or not. An earlier version of this,
dealing almost entirely with ancient coins, appeared elsewhere.
....

Before the inevitable, predictable flaming begins from some quarters
("long, boring, self-indulgent, self-serving, the usual Goldsborough
crap" etc.), let me first say that I found this interesting,
informative, and well written. I gained insights in a number of
areas, including some of those numismatic dark corners that we don't
always like to talk about. Many thanks for providing that
information.

However - you knew there'd be one - at 4,900 words not counting your
intro (rather more than a "medium-length" magazine piece), if I were
your editor here, I would have cut the opening je m' accuse section
that you later had tacked on top as a kind of antescript. UseNet
rec.x.x forums are mostly short-form platforms, so the shorter the
better even for long pieces. You ought to have spun that off into a
separate essay on coin ethics and dealers' mindsets, where it could
have and should have stood on its own here and elsewhere. The coin
type that was the object of your eBay deception was only a minor
player here, making your mea culpa TMI.

Furthermore, based on some past reactions to your posts, you
undoubtedly know that having thus exposed yourself, for some
unfriendly posters you have forever left yourself open to attack as "a
self-confessed eBay scammer". If one has a confessional that they
need to get off their chest, a UseNet forum like r.c.c. is not always
the wisest place to do so.

What I found intriguing was that you are largely intrigued by, and
know a lot about fakes - and mostly ancient ones at that. Most
serious collectors are "coin detectives" of one sort or another.
Whether it's just reading up on the history of a type, tracking down
every known date and mint mark of a series, or peering through a
magnifier for mint errors, there's a little bit of Sherlock Holmes in
all of us. Forgeries isn't an area that interests me at all; but it's
a legitimate area of study, serves a purpose to help others, and as
the minters of your ancient Roman specimens used to say, "De gustibus
non est disputandum."

Let the flaming and numismatic nitpicking begin.

- mazorj, Critic at Large