Paid valuation service

[coogan]

Have the owners or mods ever considered a " pay for play " section for this site ?

Its my impression your sick of free answers on authenticity or people wanting a value. You could have a section where they donate $5 via paypal to the costs of running the forum in exchange for an easy answer .

Just a thought. Not every collector is going to get super deep in a hobby like a lot of you are. Not sure if easy answer people would be willing to pony up some dough to find out their prospective purchase is junk , but then again $5 spent could save a person hundreds.

[MAP]

I'm not a Mod, but besides the fact that this forum is primarily about a community of collectors who enjoy the hobby and like sharing and learning from each other. I think an important take away is that what ever anyone says, anyone's post is only an opinion. with a valuation service there is the implied assumption that there is a guarantee. Sometimes these "opinions are clear cut and based on proven facts, but just think about a camo helmet. Generally it is a subjective opinion as there are no regulations or such to refer back to. Only experience.....

[hucks216]

But what happens if they don't get an answer? Do they get a refund and if they only pay after they get an answer what is stopping them saying 'thanks' and disappearing?
And then you will have people wondering if money is involved why should they spend their time and effort going through their files and books only for the money to go elsewhere.
Keeping it free lets everyone know where they stand and doesn't present any sort of obligations.

[bigmacglenn]

While the Forum itself doesn't offer Valuations as a Feature, it's open for Members to discuss their opinion/expertise regarding value, and there's no problem in sharing the Valuations from the various Price Guides out there...I agree with MAP's Statement above, well said!
Pricing Militaria can get tricky as you're dealing with Sentimental Value and Commercial Value...
cheers, Glenn

[MAP]

But what happens if they don't get an answer? Do they get a refund and if they only pay after they get an answer what is stopping them saying 'thanks' and disappearing?
And then you will have people wondering if money is involved why should they spend their time and effort going through their files and books only for the money to go elsewhere.
Keeping it free lets everyone know where they stand and doesn't present any sort of obligations.

Good points.

further..it is free for many...but there are many of us how happily pay a small $25 annual contributions to keep the forum running.

Personally I love helping anyone regardless if the pay or not. I have literally walked in their shoes being a newbie just a few short years ago. Nothing I have now would have been possible without some kind people here helping me out in so many ways. After a few awkward first posts, I realized how important WRF is for the beginner....

[coogan]

But what happens if they don't get an answer? Do they get a refund and if they only pay after they get an answer what is stopping them saying 'thanks' and disappearing?

Well that does happen now, a lot of one or two posters never come back after they get the yes or no. It doesn't really matter so much to me, I will do the work to learn but I don't intend to learn every single thing on every subject. Certain things interest me and others do not.

Out of the 24000 plus members here , 1700 or so are active , and I would think only 10% of that number are posting, with about 2% doing the majority of the posts.

I am only throwing something out for discussion, I would personally pay for an answer in certain situations.

[rbminis]

Have the owners or mods ever considered a " pay for play " section for this site ?

Its my impression your sick of free answers on authenticity or people wanting a value. You could have a section where they donate $5 via paypal to the costs of running the forum in exchange for an easy answer .

Just a thought. Not every collector is going to get super deep in a hobby like a lot of you are. Not sure if easy answer people would be willing to pony up some dough to find out their prospective purchase is junk , but then again $5 spent could save a person hundreds.

We are not "sick of free answers", but we do get annoyed at the amount of people who are too lazy to do any of their own homework and expecting to be spoon fed all of the answers. I knew very little when I received my father's PAB and EK II, but with a little help from some helpful people and the desire to learn so that I would not have to depend on others to build my collection, I have learnt a lot from this forum and a couple of others. I pay membership to about 4 forums currently to have access to data bases and retain full membership.
We also get annoyed at people that are willing to spend thousands of dollars on, (possibly fake), items but are not willing to spend $25. per year to help support the forum that they expect to get all of the answers from.
If they would only realize that if they paid $5. for each authentication, it would cost them far more than the $25. per year.
Also, as Michael has said, these are only opinions formed from years of studying and there is no guarantee, you either believe the members here or you don't. We have nothing to gain from the answers we give save for the satisfaction of helping another to avoid getting burned.
Ralph.

[coogan]

We are not "sick of free answers", but we do get annoyed at the amount of people who are too lazy to do any of their own homework and expecting to be spoon fed all of the answers. We have nothing to gain from the answers we give save for the satisfaction of helping another to avoid getting burned.
Ralph.

Perhaps you are correct , but whether you realize it or not, there is a lot of " attitude " that comes with those free answers. True a lot of new people come here with a chip on their shoulder and are shown the door , and rightly so . There is also a real old boys club feel here too, which I believe kills traffic. From a new collectors perspective you can be a big intimidating bunch of experts at times. Anyway I have my answer to the initial post. Thanks.

[hucks216]

Well that does happen now, a lot of one or two posters never come back after they get the yes or no....

That is true (and true for every forum). But as things stand they are not entering in to any sort of contract whereby they are expected to pay and 'the forum' isn't obliged to provide an answer in return.

[BOB COLEMAN]

Becoming an appraisal site for me would have more pitfalls than positives. Only so much can be determined from pictures alone. If for some reason an item is judged genuine and expensive and later turns out to be a fake, the forum would take the blame. In some ways, we are possibly an old boys club. Many of us have been at this for many years and have seen more material than the newer collector could possibly imagine. Some of the newer internet gurus have made proclamations on items being fake that I from experience know to be wrong having seen examples in the early days of collecting when fakes were very obvious. Although this is an interesting idea, in the long run, I believe the overall effect would be negative for the forum.