So, I have to pull off the gloves and address a topic that gets me hot under the collar. This is when a collector or a dealer makes a mistake and purchases a fake or reworked item. Knowing that the item is not real, they put it back up for sale without saying anything to the new customer, their thought being that by not saying anything, they are not guilty of perpetrating a fraud. After all, caveat emptor. Well, readers, I think that is committing fraud, plain and simple. It is knowing something is fake and then intending to deceive by simply not pointing it out to the buyer. This gets me hot because I have been stung, as I think most collectors have, by such fakery. Many years ago, I went into a used furniture store and spotted what I thought was a rare sideboard. It looked great, albeit was in a dark corner, and so I bought it. Only later did I discover that the seller knew it was bad and simply tucked it in the dark corner to bait someone into buying it. The second case was a very rare and important World War II medal that came onto a dealers website. It was listed at a fair, but not outrageous price for the item. Accompanying the item was a write-up about the item noting the background of the original recipient. I jumped on it as a rare item and something that I had wanted for my own collection. After getting it, I did some internet digging and found the item had been banging around for a while among collectors and dealers with the revelation that the piece was reworked. Now one can argue that I should have done my homework and researched it first, but I also was relying upon the dealer to have fully and honestly represented the item to me. It was clear that the item had a long history of having been outed as fake. The worst part is that the most recent outing of it had been with a collector about a month before I got it. Therefore, there is a question that the collector who was stuck with it returned it to the dealer who sold it, who then reposted it and sold it to me knowing it was a fake. The antiques trade gets a bad reputation when this kind of behavior happens. Most collectors are reticent (as am I) to get into fights about such items, first and foremost because our world is very subjective. Because calling an item a fake is very easy, I think most of us loathe doing it unless we have immutable evidence of fraud. Even then, we are willing to give someone a pass on the assumption that they did not know it was a fake. However, I have to say that if we continue to follow this logic of ignoring bad behavior, then we are as guilty of promulgating it as the original fraudster. Some years ago, I discovered a huge collection of fakes that were in a museum I ran. I met the person who made them and learned the story of how they moved into the marketplace and where they sold as real. The last private owner gave them to the museum for a sizeable tax write-off. This happened years before I got there, and the donor was long deceased. We documented them as fakes, and then we burned them--none of this selling them or giving them away. They needed to be forever destroyed so the pieces would have zero chance of ever coming to life again in any public or private collection. The collecting community needs to be bold and strong in such actions to stamp out fakes, not just for our sake but for future generations. Born to collect should be the motto of Peter Seiberts family. Raised in Central Pennsylvania, Seibert has been collecting and writing about antiques for more than three decades. By day, he is a museum director and has worked in Pennsylvania, Wyoming, Virginia and New Mexico. In addition, he advises and consults with auction houses throughout the Mid-Atlantic region, particularly about American furniture and decorative arts. Seiberts writings include books on photography, American fraternal societies and paintings. He and his family are restoring a 1905 arts and crafts house filled with years worth antique treasures found in shops, co-ops and at auctions.