FAKE-ALARM
The New Site for Olympic and Football Collectors
Unfortunately the publication has to be postponed for private reasons indefinitely.
This new blog – run by Wolfgang Fuhr (for more than 30 years one of the leading experts for sports memorabilia and auctioneer at AGON Sportsworld) – aims at:
– documenting all about fakes and errors
– building a central registry for fakes (WIKIfake)
– alerting in case of new fakes offered in the internet
Never was it easier to flood the collector’s market with forgeries than today! And eBay, Facebook & Co make it so easy for forgers. These criminals take advantage of the new media in the most effective and excessive way. EBay, Facebook et al are unable to cope with the deluge of fakes in all areas of brand products and collector’s items. An effective struggle against these criminal machinations would cost these companies a lot of money and reduce their profit margin. These companies virtually do not take measures to protect their users from forgeries. They are selling collectors down the river and privatizing the risk of staying on the damage.
In the respectable collectors & traders scene complaints are high as the flood of fakes perspectively endangers our hobby or our profession. Collecting should be fun. The fun wears away when constantly faced with offers of fakes and the dire prospect of even buying forgeries. In consequence of such experience the collector is getting frustrated to the point of giving up his hobby and turning to other more stress-free pastimes. Furthermore this overflow of fakes in recent years strongly diminished faith and confidence within the collectors & traders scene.
Let’s take a stand against the machinations of forgers – all of us respectable collectors and dealers! Let’s build a network and link our knowledge about forgeries! Fake-Alarm will provide a clue contribution. Only articles and stories will be published that have been verified by two experts to avoid fake information to be spread. Solely accredited experts of doubtless reputation check on the publications in FAKE-ALARM. No baiting or defamation of persons or institutions will be allowed. It will be exclusively about fakes and errors regarding sports memorabilia.
There have always been fakes throughout history and they will persist in the future – no sense in fostering illusions about that! But we can do something against the abundance of fakes and we can make it harder for forgers and deprive them of their commercial basis. We only have to take care that collectors are swiftly and efficiently informed about long standing and especially about new fakes. To reach this aim we establish FAKE-ALARM. But it will be successful only when as many of us as possible participate in this project and forward the information and knowledge to as many collectors as possible in our field. Only knowledge guards against fakes!
Let’s fight back together against forgers and fakes!
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