"Bottom line, even if it grates on a buyer to hear it, I think we owe it to future thread readers to call things out. If we're wrong, later commentors will correct us...as well they should."
Got to agree; if we can't call it like it is on gun listings we know are designed to absolutely screw some misguided buyer, then who can or will? In my recent DGJ article on the two recently discovered A-3 Smith 20-bore guns (the only two such guns in the records) I pointed out that a fake A-3 twenty had been floating around and misrepresented as a restored original for more that 20 years; and I'm convinced that every dealer hawking that gun during that period knew it was a fake, yet represented it as restored. I was told by someone who claimed to have witnessed the transaction that the gun was sold in Tulsa for $105K during the time I was writing the story. It was sold by a dealer who represents himself as a Smith gun expert, and I know he knew the gun was a fake. During my research I learned that the gun had sold at least twice during that 20 year period, once in the neighborhood of $70K and again for $90K; but I wonder how the person who paid $105K is going to react when he learns his gun is only a $5-6K upgrade?
