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Old 5th August 2019, 01:22 PM   #14
A. G. Maisey
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Join Date: May 2006
Posts: 6,676
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Ken, the problem is that you do not have the opportunity to use your knowledge.

If you go back to my opening post you will find that I am talking only about misrepresentation:- silver plate or mamas presented as silver, pastes presented as gemstones.

At no time have I been talking about the silly little errors and misunderstandings in general descriptions.

If you bid on the basis of silver and you get silver plate or mamas you have been flim-flamed. Conned. Lied to. You have paid too much.

That has absolutely nothing at all to do with knowledge, it has a great deal to do with the lack of knowledge, a lack deliberately, or perhaps because of laziness, created by the auctioneer.

But since we have strayed so far from my original intent in starting this thread and we are talking about appraisals on the basis of photographs, I will comment on that.

Very frequently I am approached by people to give opinions and valuations of keris. I get a couple of usually rather poor photographs, and I get asked the value, or description of that keris, often I get asked how old it is. Now, although I have something like 65 or 66 years experience in the study and collection of keris, I usually cannot tell too much at all from those photos, most especially I am not able to give any sort of approximately accurate valuation. If I cannot value nor appraise a keris from a photograph and no usable description, what chance has anybody else got? Unless of course they're psychic.

The auctioneer owns the game, not me, and that is why I do not bid at auction unless I can handle the goods beforehand.
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