I moderate the yahoo club for collectors and have been collecting for over 15 years, long before ebay or keepers of the key, crescent etc.
We have about 100 members and I have personally met at least 35 of them through get togethers. If a member of any group emailed us that the pin we were selling or bidding on was theirs and could prove it, we would assist in it's return. I can't tell you we would turn it over for free if we were selling it but if you covered our costs, we would be reasonable. Very few would argue. I think some of the collectors referred to in other threads are not part of our like-minded board (all pins should return home eventually).
We've booted several people from the board - some are just psychos - and those bad seeds are the ones you see a bit more of. That pin article this month had no connection to our group. We had our share of nasty press with the 2002 NY Times article where a mole came to Pinfest and then a NYTimes article was written with an entirely different spin that we were told when we were interviewed. If you want a copy, pm me. That is why none of us participated in that article earlier this month. Clearly the two interviewed did not go through the awful experience we endured. (Although dogboy did say he felt someone might come to his house and try and recoup a brother badge). My collection lives happily at the bank and comes out once in a while for viewing or get togethers!
Nothing illegal or immoral about collecting. Just play nice in the sandbox and we can all work together.
ebayfan
Quote:
Originally posted by kappa2
My concern about the pins on eBay are that they are small items easily stolen and sold for quick money before the owner even realizes they are gone. Often a police report isn't officially filed because a person can't tell the police an exact date of when the robbery took place.
I have found a couple of the collectors simply don't care if a badge is a lost/stolen piece where the original owner is desperately searching for it. It is my hope that their fellow collectors would start to require certain ethical standards to be agreed to before dealing with them in any setting.
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