Unsuspecting buyers with repro documents

[Lee Stewart]

'It's a catastrophe.' French museum learns half its paintings are fake

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nati...210101264.html

[njsteve]

Originally Posted by Lee Stewart

'It's a catastrophe.' French museum learns half its paintings are fake

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nati...210101264.html

Yes, they learned that half their paintings of Corvettes from the late 1800's were fake! Wonder how they figured it out? :-)

[MosportGreen66]

Paul, isn't this is a grey area for you? Don't you sell reproduction documents?

http://www.winvoices.com

[fsc66]

Deleted thread

[Charley Lillard]

Thanks for watermarking them.

[MosportGreen66]

Originally Posted by fsc66

Yes, and it's very hard to maintain the high level of integrity in which I run my business with others that have no issue reproducing documents for high level or very rare cars without first authenticating those cars. I do recreate documents for cloned or non-numbers matching cars, however all of these documents will have watermarks on them which cannot be removed. I advise customers that they should never attempt to present my documents as originals. I keep a database of all documents and customers also. The issue I have is, when someone attempts to present documents, trim tags, vins, etc. as authentic when they know fully well they are reproductions. Lastly, I turn down approx 25% of the orders I receive for various reasons.

Thanks for asking,
Paul

Are the documents you flagged here as reproduction your documents?

[fsc66]

Deleted thread

[67BelAir427]

Originally Posted by njsteve

Yes, they learned that half their paintings of Corvettes from the late 1800's were fake! Wonder how they figured it out? :-)

A museum in Japan had a curator who was found guilty of stealing rare oil paintings and replacing them with perfect forgeries that he painted himself. After he was sentenced , he agreed to identify the paintings that he forged. He found several that were perfect fakes, but not his work. Turns out that someone else was doing the same thing at the same time!

[njsteve]

Amazing. Sorry to hijack the thread but you'd think that the forgers could make some serious bucks simply painting modern portraits of people in the original masters' style and selling them with full disclosure. I think it would be pretty amazing to have a "Day 2" Rembrandt of me and the family hanging on my wall.

[MosportGreen66]

I need to ask the community - how is no one else outraged by this situation?

Because the world of Corvettes is microscopic, turns out I had this car flagged in my database as having a reproduction trim tag after a friend asked for my opinion of the tag. I never saw the VIN though.

This situation frustrated me immensely so I stepped up and reached out to the buyer who posted on the Corvette Forum. I am NOT affiliated with him or this transaction in any way shape or form. I did this because I have unfortunately have the experience of dealing with a dishonest seller (a member here) which cost me $10k +. I gave him candid advice and he acted promptly. Kuddos to him! He sent pics to a very well known Corvette expert (a member here too) and the expert and I had communication and agreed on the details of the car – real VIN, fake trim tag, fake paperwork. The buyer had correspondence with the seller and the seller agreed to take the car back without financial implication. The return/refund is slated for later this week.

As a community of classic car enthusiasts, we should continuously be assertive and vigilant against reproduction documents, dishonesty, and fraud within our hobby.

Dan