My Support Forums - View Single Post - Have I ruined my relationship with a new freind?

Tucson · 06:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lefty the Salesman

If I may give you some more advice, a dealer cannot function as an objective appraiser due to conflicts of interest, just as an ethical appraiser is unable to function as a dealer.

For example, your "Colt" might well be worth $4000 now or later, but your dealer friend might have told you that your it was worth only $2500 so that you'll gratefully accept a crisis offer of $1800 for it once your manic phase ends and you need to raise money to pay off your credit cards. The dealer will then turn around and sell the "Colt" privately to a collector for $4800. This kind of thing happens all the time.

I'm just a well-meaning stranger on a mental illness forum who chose as an avatar a minor character from a children's television puppet show, so please refer to this link:

Everything You Want to Know About Appraisals and Appraisers

Yes, I have recently discovered what you have said here to be true. I find this antique business is a very "loaded" business that has many, those who would normally be considered comoletely upstanding people, to act in very marginally ethical ways. I have been stung a couple time when I have not understood this basic truth to be evident. It is a jungle like no other that I have come across. I do need to keep appraising separate from the dealer who I purchase the antique from.

Tucson

PS This is one reason why I decided to look at an auction for my next purchase. Sure, in their descriptions, they can use a couple suplerlative type words, and sometimes an optimistic one word for the start of its condition. But I find them to be on the conservative side where the description can easily be distilled down to the facts. It is what they do not mention that I watch for. I then contact the auction house in an attempt to have these questions answered. IMO an auction house that has even a whiff of impropriety will quickly have no following.