Historical Research LLC Authentications

[Dolf]

Originally Posted by Nota Bene

Guys,

I am not sure I understand - my guarantee is on the front page of my site for everybody to see. It's just a promise without any fancy certificates, but this is what my business is based on - mutual trust between me and the collectors. If we you talking about putting it on paper, I've always thought that my word is worth more.

Alexei

Alexei,

Of course your word is more than enough as a guarantee, that's not the point.

We were talking about paper authetication, and as someone mentioned, the eventual future necessity of all awards to be authenticated by the seller, on paper. We were also talking about the fact dealers should or shouldn't authenticate these awards. As you can read above some of us consider it ethically correct, others don't, or at least have some reservations about that.

Just imagine this situation: when you sell a piece, anyone buying from you knows for sure that you guarantee it for life so that's fine.
Now, imagine that the buyer wants to resell it one day: just saying he bought it from you might not be enough, but as Rusty suggested, if there was a signed paper with that piece then that would be considered a written guarantee each time the award would pass from one hand to another.
For me, as I said above, your word is more than enough (otherwise I wouldn't have bought almost my entire Soviet awards collection from you, only occasionally buying a few items from other suppliers) but if I was to resell it in the future, I wonder if it would be enough that I say "Buyers, I bought this stuff from Nota Bene", see what I mean?

Anyway, that's how I understood Rusty's agreement with Yolkin post, reason why I agreed with that point. Guys please correct me if I'm wrong.

Dolf

[HuliganRS]

Dolf,

That's exactly what I was thinking!

Rusty.

[Dolf]

Originally Posted by HuliganRS

Dolf,

That's exactly what I was thinking!

Rusty.

Rusty,

Thanks for confirming, buddy

Cheers,

Dolf

[new world]

Guys,

What's the format do you suggest for Alexei to use? Similar to what McDaniel has - with photos and detailed description?

I envisopn there another problem - faking of the authenticity certificate to accompany fake medal. With all fairness - with current state of technology reproducing Paul's certificate is a piece of cake.

William

[HuliganRS]

It's just an idea.

I don't even know about the logistics involved! + Time!!!

Rusty.

[rboomsma]

Personally I keep my pay pal reciept and email of sale.
So if I do decide to sell in the future I can prove I bought it from Alexei, of course this only will work for medals and orders with serial numbers.

Originally Posted by new world

Guys,

What's the format do you suggest for Alexei to use? Similar to what McDaniel has - with photos and detailed description?

I envisopn there another problem - faking of the authenticity certificate to accompany fake medal. With all fairness - with current state of technology reproducing Paul's certificate is a piece of cake.

William

[Dolf]

Originally Posted by HuliganRS

It's just an idea.

I don't even know about the logistics involved! + Time!!!

Rusty.

Rusty,

Allow me to make of your words mine!

This is/was just an idea, a suggestion, and just like Rusty I have no idea at all about the time and logistics involved, or if this would be possible as anyway I didn't give it any deep thoughts!
It was something that just crossed my mind that maybe it could work, but I just don't know about practical details!

William, if faking PMD's CoA is such a piece of cake, I wonder if it's worthy to keep doing them! The fact is that many collectors keep asking for those, at least for high-end pieces, and the prices of the pieces sold with such CoA keep selling for more money than others not having them!
Anyway, anything can probably be faked these days. As we know faking these awards is also so common, so does it mean we can't trust nothing at all these days? Not the awards, not the CoA, not any eventual CoG?...

Dolf

[HuliganRS]

Agreed!

Rusty.

[Art]

Guys,

Dolf makes an interesting point regarding the value of a documented award. Unfortunately even the documents can be forged. To be 100% sure of authenticity, a form of data encryption could be used in either the document or in the form of an electronic "appraisal". An example of the later might consist of physically looking at the award, determining it's authenticity, then utilizing Public Key Encryption to generate a unique key held only by the appraiser. The public key could be included on a CD with the scanned authentication document. The shortcoming there is the potential to make duplicates of the CD and of the award, thus creating "authentic" forgeries. What would need to be done to retain 100% security is a microscopic biometric (perhaps I'm being redundant there) mapping of key points on the award to essentially marry the award to the data key. An expensive solution to the problem unfortunately.

[Dolf]

Originally Posted by Art

Guys,

Dolf makes an interesting point regarding the value of a documented award. Unfortunately even the documents can be forged. To be 100% sure of authenticity, a form of data encryption could be used in either the document or in the form of an electronic "appraisal". An example of the later might consist of physically looking at the award, determining it's authenticity, then utilizing Public Key Encryption to generate a unique key held only by the appraiser. The public key could be included on a CD with the scanned authentication document. The shortcoming there is the potential to make duplicates of the CD and of the award, thus creating "authentic" forgeries. What would need to be done to retain 100% security is a microscopic biometric (perhaps I'm being redundant there) mapping of key points on the award to essentially marry the award to the data key. An expensive solution to the problem unfortunately.

Art,

Thanks a lot for helping an ignorant about these things like me to understand what could be a technical solution for the problem, and at the same time realize how expensive that could also be! Wow!

Anyway, as far as I'm concerned, and as long as I'll be the owner of my collection, the word of a man like Alexei worths one thousand of these XXIst century technologies, and I guess the financial costs of such an operation as you describe above make it worth even more

Dolf