Ed, I enjoyed reading your paper on fakes and find it potentially very useful reading for all stages of a collecting life.
I myself cannot always resolve authenticity even with an object in hand; indeed it is more accurate to say that increasingly I rarely can confirm or denounce with certainty and I have not made a significant antique arms acquisition in over a decade. When I will give an opinion, it is either that I am "enthusiastic about" or "afraid of" an item with the caveat that in order to reduce the risk of acquiring a fake, I have "calibrated" myself to walk away from maybe the best opportunities.
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