An interesting thread...buffoonery abounds...
It just isn't cars guys routinely fake for profit. I also have an interest in WW2 US/German firearms, especially USMC sniper rifles.
I own one of the top real examples of what most collectors call an USMC Unertl sniper and have turned down in excess of $45k for it. A group of us who belong to a secret squirrel FB group, realized the number of fake rifles FAR exceeded the number of original ones. As a result I created a registry to track serial numbers and serve as a record.
I mention this as originally the registry was only about real rifles...ones we could prove were righteous. However after talking about it and noting guys were selling fakes for half or more of the value (a lot of money regardless)...we now track ANY serial we see reporting to be an Unertl sniper.
It still hasn't stopped some guys from spending stupid money (1 guy bought 2 obvious fakes for almost 75k total...with different transactions....and knew how to ask questions BEFORE buying...but got caught up in auction BS...lol)..
Tracking all reported (real and fakes) has allowed us to have a historical database we can reference, supplied some interesting quantitative data and actually saved a couple of guys from getting burned...
Something to consider in the future.
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