Prices of Chin Straps at the Max

[God]

Any of you guys notice the prices on chin straps at the Max show last weekend !
so were passing hands at over 60 bucks a time !

Any views ?

[Brian C.]

Oh man, if God is upset with chinstrap prices we are in big trouble.

$60 is pretty reasonable for a nice condition chinstrap. I bought two off of a forum member over a year ago for close to that amount each.

[ROBB]

$60 for a genuine chinstrap is pretty good .I have just bought a crappy lid just for the chinstrap and that was 47 Euros .Rob.

[Perry Floyd]

Lots of fake straps were passing hands, the aging was very well done on a pacticular lot one dealer was selling, if he used real early hardware it would have fooled me..

[Stephan Wahl]

I don't understand why it is if a dealer is selling known repros. as original at such a venerable show, that they are not asked to pack up their stuff and leave. Are the producers of the Max show just that eager to sell floor space that they wont bust any of these guys??? Just like eBay!!

[MartyC]

sos

I don't understand why it is if a dealer is selling known repros. as original at such a venerable show, that they are not asked to pack up their stuff and leave. Are the producers of the Max show just that eager to sell floor space that they wont bust any of these guys??? Just like eBay!!

Your point is dead on IMO. None of the show promoters at the MAX or SOS seem to care to address any of the fraud that is going on within their shows. Some of the fakes are so obvious and yet they let it continue. Then there is the "MAX certification" of dealers, but does that stop them from selling fakes????

Just my opinion.

Marty

[Stephan Wahl]

I can imagine that if you were to mention fakes to a promoter/producer, and ask them what they are going to do about it, their actions would be to first show you to the door instead of the merchant. I guess you just have to be super carful where ever you go.

[Wesley's Dad]

Certification

MAX Certification… While I’ll give this idea the benefit of the doubt, it unfortunately doesn’t address the primary mode that these dealers are operating. Many of these dealers already offer typical inspection terms and "Lifetime Guarantee". One simply pays the fee to get the MAX Certified Dealer logo. The MAX organization doesn’t proactively police these dealers, this is done via their mediation system that a dealer vows to abide by when he buys the certification.

The problem I see with it and the reason it holds little water with me is the loophole it allows. This loophole is that as long as a dealer abides by the terms of arbitration, he keeps his certification. While I remain all ears if someone else would care to try, it has yet to be satisfactorily explained to me how this "certification" prevents this scenario:

A dealer knowingly sells both good and bad material. Most novice collectors get the fever and by outside their knowledge base. Some are worse than others, but as collectors most of us have taken a chance or two in our history. That being true, said dealer is likely to pawn off a ton of bad stuff before the first customer actually takes him to task via the MAX Certified Board of Experts. At that point the item is determined to be fake by the board, but the dealer plays ignorant and refunds the money on this purchase. He still banks the profit from all the uncontested sales to satisfied, but ignorant customers and still comes away MAX Certified and reputation intact.

[Perry Floyd]

Guys it' s the politics of the hobby.

If you kicked out and banned every dealer that sold fakes and/or excluded all the fakes offered at the major shows these shows would only be 75-100 tables tops. Then there would be no Max or SOS as no one would bother promoting it because they would go in the hole.

[Wesley's Dad]

Politics

Perry,

Yes, despite my problems with the whole certification idea what you say is quite true. Once again, education proves to be the key to success. We are left to use that education to do our own turd sorting at the shows. I feel for every dealer out there committing outright fraud, there is another selling some bad items simply because he doesn't know the difference. If we kicked everyone out who had bad items on their table, it would not be much of a show. I guess in the end there is no solution other than the age old advice of educating yourself and watching who you buy from.

Mike

[Perry Floyd]

Perry,

Yes, despite my problems with the whole certification idea what you say is quite true. Once again, education proves to be the key to success. We are left to use that education to do our own turd sorting at the shows. I feel for every dealer out there committing outright fraud, there is another selling some bad items simply because he doesn't know the difference. If we kicked everyone out who had bad items on their table, it would not be much of a show. I guess in the end there is no solution other than the age old advice of educating yourself and watching who you buy from.

Mike

That's correct, every collectors biggest goal should be to master his field. Once you have accomplished that you will find the problem that started this topic doesnt effect you.

[phild]

[QUOTE=MartyC]Your point is dead on IMO. None of the show promoters at the MAX or SOS seem to care to address any of the fraud that is going on within their shows. Some of the fakes are so obvious and yet they let it continue. Then there is the "MAX certification" of dealers, but does that stop them from selling fakes????

Just my opinion.

My worry is not about the "obvious" fakes, but rather the subtle sly fakes that that would be very hard to detect, prove and take action against. At the MAX I was around a given area when maybe 4 or 5 high ticket authenications were occuring. Opinions are one thing, objective fact based evidence is entirely somthing different.

True Mastery of an field in collecting is relative. If one wants to collect over even a pseudo broad area (say "Heer headgear") it really becomes a pipe dream.

I think that it is unrealistic to expect the MAX staff to police fakes...or even detect them in the main. Every third item or so that gets posted on the forum draws mixed opinions...even over days of being examined,discussed and pondered. How are the MAX officials going to inspect and rule on 50,000 items in the set up on Thursday?