Historical Research LLC Authentications

[Art]

Fellow Forum Members,

Paul McDaniel, proprietor of Historical Research LLC, emailed me this evening and asked if I would post a message on the forum stating that he will be going to Afghanistan until January and that his authentication business will be shut down until then. No authentications will be done until he returns.

Art

[Alfred]

Originally Posted by Art

Fellow Forum Members,

Paul McDaniel, proprietor of Historical Research LLC, emailed me this evening and asked if I would post a message on the forum stating that he will be going to Afghanistan until January and that his authentication business will be shut down until then. No authentications will be done until he returns.

Art

He seems to be back. He has opened a new homepage.

regards
Andreas

[new world]

Yes, he's back with re-designed web site.

www.historicalresearch.com

William

[Alfred]

have a look at his new prices for authentification

[Laurent]

a bad thing... the price for the COA simply follows the price for the decorations.

Don't you think that less people will ask for an authentification? I know it is the expert, but still! I know he has sort of monopol, but it's quite unfair...

[Alfred]

Originally Posted by Laurent

Don't you think that less people will ask for an authentification? I know it is the expert, but still! I know he has sort of monopol, but it's quite unfair...

The price is a "death sentence" for the authentification of some awards. In my oppinion: For the lower priced medals and orders the price is to high and unfair. For a 2nd class Suvorow, Nachimow etc. it´s maybe okay and warrantable .....

[dannybou]

Fair or not, it just puts it out of my reach now. To buy a medal for $200 or $300 dollars and to pay an extra $225 to have it authenticated is just not cost effective, for me anyways. Too bad as I had a few Orders which I wouldn't have mind to have checked by Paul.

[Kim]

When I mailed Paul in november last year he wrote back that he had stoped doing COA:s. I guess he changed his mind... A high price is probably a way of getting less work to do.

A COA was never a thing for all awards. In the end it's buying peace of mind that your Suvorv 1st class wasn't made last year in Russia

/Kim

[ericlida]

Originally Posted by Laurent

Don't you think that less people will ask for an authentification? I know it is the expert, but still! I know he has sort of monopol, but it's quite unfair...

Yes, Paul is a very good and the most experienced expert, - but he is not only one in the world.
We have other experts, even members of our Forum (Alexei), who would be able to do this (sorry Alexei, I am talking about you and for you - weird ). If they agree to start doing the Authentification, it would help other collectors and bring some additional income for them (I mean both - colectors would have more money to buy, person doing the Authentification would make some extra $$).
I have several orders to complete the Authentification. I had plans to send them to Paul after the New Year. But now, I don't feel like I want to spend $1,500.00!!!! more to get prove for something I already know (the orders are original).
Of course, if we are talking about Nakhimov or Ushakov or Suvorov-I / Kutuzov -I - $225.00 is not a big deal if you spend $35000-75000. How many people we know are able to spend this much?
Another problem: dealers would increase the prices of the medals orders with COA. Now they should also spend $225.00 more.
The main reason of the price increase is a MONOPOLI. If more experts would start doing the Authentification, the prices would come back to normal and reasonable.
Eric.

[Nack]

While it's true that there are probably a fair number of people out there who could offer such services (I agree that Alexei is such a person), I doubt that they will, for one reason: the potential liability is too great to justify the effort unless you are charging a bunch of $.

For example, say Expert is asked to authenticate a Suvorov 2nd, which goes for around $14k. If Expert determines its a fake, then Buyer will be unhappy, and could sue Seller, and Expert will likely be a witness in the litigation. That would necessitate an attorney for Expert, which costs money. $14k is a lot of money, so legal action is possible. Or, what if Expert determines that something is fake, and it turns out to be genuine, but when the client discovers the mistake, he has already sold the item for pennies on the dollar With the potential-expert people owning hundreds of thousands of dollars of awards/etc, that's a huge exposure.

While insurance could avoid having to hire a lawyer, and protect the potential experts' assets, insurance also costs money, and I'm not sure that there are a lot of such underwriters out there. In the end, it's likely to be a big hassle, so I'll bet that most people who could provide the service won't.