A Public Apology from Al Haag

[Tom M]

I am really somewhat suprised at the statements of some forum members regarding this issue. I would hope that everyone in this situation, as well as others in life, would give someone a second chance when an error has been made. The man apologized. Why can't we be men about it and leave it at that.

Tom.

I undestand what you're saying and I thought like that at the start (see my previous posts on thread Al Haag).But if you had/have a Dachau tab what would your paranoia state be right now? Everybody deserves a second chance, I agree , but to what extent?

[derspiess63]

In my humble opinion with the whole Al Haag thing Mr. Lumsden only managed and pee in his Bowlers hat before putting it on!I couldn't care less about Heinrich Himmler's Racing Team regalia but one thing is for sure........Mr. Lumsden's reputation is now shot for good and just like with any other liar on this Earth's face.................he who lies once lies forever
Manuel

[tom hansen]

Tom.

I undestand what you're saying and I thought like that at the start (see my previous posts on thread Al Haag).But if you had/have a Dachau tab what would your paranoia state be right now? Everybody deserves a second chance, I agree , but to what extent?

I think nearly all these items have or will be called under scrutiny, whether it is these collar tabs, flawed S&L RKs, anti-partisan badges or whatever. I have had some items which have been reviewed with variable responses. I think one must decide for themselves with the available information and one voice does not make that big of a difference. If that was so, no one would own any oaks or oaks and swords and certainly not a flawed S&L RK.

[Jacob Andreasen]

What an A. ....
People have trusted mr. lumsdems opinion for years, and purchase his books, and now this, is this the reward to your fellow collectors.

If you where my dog, i would have you shot...

/Jacob

[Bill D.]

This analogy is flawed. Your purveyor of fake RKs seeks material gain from his fradulent scheme - he desires to take your money in exchange for something he knows is fake. Lumsden did nothing of the sort.

What complete nonsense.

It is a distiction without a substantive difference.

If someone lies to you and tells you that something that is fake is good, you may take money out of your pocket to purchase it.
If someone tells you that something that is good is bad, and you dispose of it for less than you paid, money has still been taken from you.
If in the first case you do not buy the item, and if in the second you do not sell it, the result is the same: a deception was carried out and the risk existed that harm would occur as a result of the deception.
Someone was offering one of the collar tabs for sale on the e-stand when this came about. Did Mr. Lumsden's lie and deception cost that collector a sale? If so, then it was effectively taking money from him.
It is just a question of the method by which it is being done.
Harm is harm.

And I am taken aback by your response, Tom (Hansen), and I agree with Tom Mumby. If someone engaged in a deliberate lie, and carried out a plan through the use of a false identity to give weight to that lie, and if the effect was that items for which you had paid significant sums of money were labled as "fake", I question whether you would be as magnanimous.

Furthermore, this was not a "mistake", it was a deliberate act of deception, an attempt to deceive other collectors on this Forum.

There are over 5,000 members of this Forum. I was member number 35. I cannot recall, in all the years that I have been on this Forum, someone coming onto this collectors' site and egaging in the sort of despicable attempt at deliberate fraud and deceit that this constituted.

THAT WAS NOT WHY THIS FORUM WAS CREATED !!!

It was created as a venue for collectors to share knowledge and to advance the hobby; it was not created so that one individual could deliberately sabatoge an offering by another member, and to lie and deceive and attempt to create doubt in the hobby, solely to have others think that he was "right" in his own, personal illusory doubts about an artifact.

Do all of us really recognize what this was all about ?

It was a planned act of lying to advance a personal agenda. It was revealed only because the perpetrator was caught and threatened with exposure.

Thousands of collectors from around the world have come together and over a period of years have created what is one of the premiere militaria forums on the internet. It is a place where there have been COUNTLESS posts from members expressing their thanks for the information that has been shared with them on this site, information that has enabled them to avoid collecting mistakes, and to build collections of which they are proud.

And then along comes someone who doesn't like the fact that his own view that a type of collar tab is fake is unaccepted, particularly when it is rebutted by numerous collectors with first-hand aquisition experiences from veterans. And so he creates a fake identity and deliberately LIES to the collecting community, the same community that has built this Forum as a repository for collecting knowledge, NOT disinformation that is placed into view just to satisfy a personal quest.


There are errors in judgments, and then there are errors in judment.

If a physician makes an error of judgment in the medication that he elects for a patient and harm results, there is and should be forgiveness. The physician used his judement on a course of action, and there was not a godod result, but that is the nature of modern medicine.

Suppose, however, that a physician errs in judgment by deliberately giving the wrong medication to a patient, because they want to become known as the first physician to publish an article about the medication's side effects.Then they lie to the patient for the purpose of carrying out this plan. Then they are found out, and they say "Well, I was trying to get a discussion going about side effects."
Tell me, Tom (Hansen), if you are on the hospital credentialing committee, are you going to let that Doctor keep his staff priveleges. Is that a "mere mistake" to be forgiven and forgotten ?


There are sincere apologies, and there are insincere apologies. The first are deserving of weight; the second are not, in my opinion.

It comes down to this:

Someone on this Forum abused the forum;
They didn't like the fact that others disagreed with them about a collecting matter, which is known to happen: S&L flawed Knights Crosses; "Junker" marked Heer paratrooper badges; and the list goes on. But THIS person is not content to engage in the sort of discussion that this Forum was created to foster. THIS person decides that the thing to do is to LIE to all of the other members of the Forum. It doesn't matter if other forum members who have these collar taba are harmed; ALL that matters is that "I think thay are bad, and I want to be the one to prove it", even if the "proof" is offered by a fake individual and is, in fact, a lie.

If someone wants to set up a table at a show, and offer crap to the public, or if they want to sell a book that says that something recognized by other collectors as legitimate is fake, they are free to do so.

If they want to come ONTO THIS FORUM AND LIE AND DECEIVE TO TRY TO MAKE SOME POINT, THEN I THINK THEY DON'T BELONG HERE !

[Tom M]

I agree with you Bill. Thank you.

[nutmeg]

Well, That really sums it up perfectly !

[Jean-Loup]

Guys, I have never met Robin, so dont know if all we are saying is extremely meaningfull to him, or if he couldnt care less. But he has invested many years into collecting; and the collectors community is probably important to him. If what had just happened to him had happened to me, I would feel extremelly ashamed. I would feel like disapering into a hole in the ground. I might even feel like comiting "the irreparable" if you see what I mean. It happens a lot, as any cop knows; so maybe some of you should be a bit less harsh. After all, his hard built reputations has just been destroyed.
Maybe I am being a bit dramatic here, but I dont want the same thing to happen to Robin, as to that nuclear scientist in Britton last year.
By the way, its 1:45 am here, so maybe I am the one being iratioanl right now
JL

[Matt L]

Tom.

I undestand what you're saying and I thought like that at the start (see my previous posts on thread Al Haag).But if you had/have a Dachau tab what would your paranoia state be right now? Everybody deserves a second chance, I agree , but to what extent?

Has all this caused any REAL harm save for messing-up one sale on the e-stand? Did anyone throw out his tabs or sell them off for nothing? Or is everyone just rattled- something that will pass.. Surely the anger people feel for having been made to worry that their items might be fake is quite justified- I would be angry too- however shouldn't all who are also feel a great sense of relief that it was all a lie? I would think actually think that the 'paranoia state' should be zero. No more or less proof that these Dachau tabs are real exists now than before the incident, right? Nothing has changed other than Robin made a big mistake and is paying for it. I would think that the fallout from this incident will, in fact, go a long way to prevent it from happening again.

I think Tom's got it exactly right- who can say he's never made a bad move, and doesn't everyone deserve a second chance? Especially someone who has contributed so very much to this hobby for so long. How could this one, albeit very foolish mistake, destroy all that? It seems very unfair. People seem to be reacting very emotionally- and that's always the wrong way to look at something.

As for it being part of his personal agenda, well of COURSE it was- what that is discussed here is not personal to the person discussing it? Opinions, especially expert ones on authenticity, are by definition personal. Only ideas based on concrete evidence with no room for interpretation aren't personal. Were it a case of him trying to convince everyone that these Dachau tabs are fake for PERSONAL GAIN, well that would be something entirely different; but what I think he was trying to do is fight a one-man crusade against something he believes is a blemish on this hobby. I feel very strongly about fake Erkennungsmarken- I've even fought a couple of battles over fakes, and none of it was for any personal gain. I just hate the things and wish I could stop good people from being taken in by them. Fortunately, I both times reached the point where there was nothing more I could say to try and advance my position because the opposing party had dug in, so I just let it go- because the situation isn't hurting me or my friends directly, so it's not worth the headache. That's perhaps what Robin should have done, but he didn't. I can easily see getting to the point where one might try something radical given enough years of being driven nuts by something you feel is completely fake. Of course that doesn't make it right, but it is somewhat understandable.

Indeed 'Al Haag' would have probably gone on if he wasn't found out, but the fact he was- before any real harm was done (assuming the answers to my first three questions was 'no')- could be taken positively by realizing that now that everyone is aware of this possible means of messing with us, it's going to be far harder for someone whose agenda is really destructive to try this. Indeed it concerns me to realize just what might have happened it someone really shady had tried this, but I'm glad it's now in people's minds so maybe it won't happen again anytime soon.

Did he do this to hurt anyone? No. Did he do this to swindle anyone? No. Is he going to pay because even the most understanding of us may find this hard to forget? Probably. Forgive, but don't forget seems to me to be the way to go... It just seems to me that it might be worth exercising a little more understanding and a little less emotion.

Matt

[derspiess63]

Guys, I have never met Robin, so dont know if all we are saying is extremely meaningfull to him, or if he couldnt care less. But he has invested many years into collecting; and the collectors community is probably important to him. If what had just happened to him had happened to me, I would feel extremelly ashamed. I would feel like disapering into a hole in the ground. I might even feel like comiting "the irreparable" if you see what I mean. It happens a lot, as any cop knows; so maybe some of you should be a bit less harsh. After all, his hard built reputations has just been destroyed.
Maybe I am being a bit dramatic here, but I dont want the same thing to happen to Robin, as to that nuclear scientist in Britton last year.
By the way, its 1:45 am here, so maybe I am the one being iratioanl right now
JL

JL,
you're not irrational at all and I'm sure Mr. Lumsden won't even have a shave.....let alone committing the "irreparable"!
The fact that he is a policeman should worsen the whole thing to a greater extent...they're supposed to make other people abide rules and respect laws and if they behave like the people they should protect us from they should pay twice the price, and I said "twice" because I'm soft-hearted!I'm on Police's side and I respect their uniforms, I respect the ones who earn pays that are not that high and who nevertheless risk their lives to protect their fellow citizens,,I admire them and in my family there's a Carabinieris General,but when they behave in a dirty way, well, no pain is enough.........they simply have to pay...and pay!
Once a policeman on patrol wrongly fined me on the highway,stating that I had done something wrong while in fact I had not...well, I didn't pay the fine...I paid my lawyer to make that "poor-man's Poncherello" learn the lesson the hard way instead !He(Mr. Lumsden) hasn't opened a can of worms ...he has opened a can of baby water mocassins and a few of them simply crawled up his leg and bit his family jewels,while the rest played a mess within the collectors' community!
Me, I wouldn't believe anymore a single word from his mouth for the life of me !
Manuel

[RoyA]

The Administrator and Moderators have a tough decision to make.
Whatever the outcome, I believe that all Forum members must be treated equally.
Otherwise a double-standard is created that threatens the integrity of the Forum.
Roy

[Bill D.]

His actions are not criminal, but they are tortuous,

Well, unless he was applying the thumb screws to someone while he was posting his "Al Haag" commnets, then I think that his actions were "tortious", and not "tortuous".

[landsknechte]

I'm not an SS collector (one sleeve eagle and a couple of postage stamps, that's it), so in all honesty I don't really know the "big picture" impact of this alternate identity. Personally, I find the academic dishonesty most troubling. This seems to me to be in line with plagiarism and alteration of source materials. It's a disservice to less-experienced collectors and researchers, and a disservice to future generations that will inevitably be building more and more of their perceptions based upon what those of us closest to the original sources leave behind for them. Ultimately, a worse offense in my mind than swindling someone out of a few bucks.


On one level, I believe that the rules ought to be applied equally no matter what the status of the individual is. However, there's another part of me that believes that he ought to be held to a higher standard because he is a respected figure and an authority.

--Chris

[Sebastian Bianchi]

I let this thread go today, in part on purpose to let some members who felt slighted blow off some steam.

Having done that, this thread is closed. Administrative decisions and actions are not open for a vote and have never nor will ever be discussed in public.

Suffice it to say that I am aware of the matter at hand. Let's get back to collecting folks.....

Thank you.