How much more absurd can it get?

Jerry says catalog prices are too high, so he overpaid.

Walt says catalog prices are too low, and that most prices are mistakes anyhow. It looks like only he knows the true value of things. But, where is HIS catalog? Of course there isn't any, since it is SO much easier to just sit back and criticize than it is to spend countless hours doing actual catalog work.

Tom wants to get volunteers to help average out the prices, and this upsets everybody! The sellers don't want low prices, and the buyers don't want high prices. Tom's suggestion of separate catalogs for buyers and sellers might actually be the only way to make both groups happy. Meanwhile, the real collectors just have fun collecting, and have even more fun laughing at the endless arguments about money.

Many sellers use wildly inflated "book" values from "books" that nobody else has ever heard of. There's also the people who only judge a book by the handful of special strikes they want to sell, and never mind the other 1,500 or so that they aren't selling.

As usual, most of the messages in this forum are about money and greed. Hardly any messages are about collecting.

Many people complaining about Tom suggest that he is not a collector. This is just a silly attempt at spin control, as if being a collector has any bearing on whether he is telling the truth or not. Yet, the same people line up to defend the speculators and dealers, who are admittedly NOT collectors! How did one person determine that Tom is not a collector? Because Tom hasn't bought or sold on Ebay for six months! Yep, unless you are actively buying and selling on Ebay, you aren't a collector. Never mind that by this logic the speculators who buy and sell must be the best collectors ever, due to their intense auction & selling activity, in spite of the fact that some admit they don't collect silver strikes at all! By this same logic, anyone who doesn't have a computer can't be a collector, either, since they aren't on Ebay.

There is the usual double standard here -- you and your friends can do no wrong and are always correct, while your enemies can do no good, and are always wrong. The same people who tell Tom to shut up and stop expressing his opinions then go on to express their own opinions at great length, including resorting to name calling. The funniest messages are the ones accusing Tom of hiding behind a fake name, and yet are posted by people hiding behind their own fake Ebay names! They see nothing wrong with this double standard, either.

Many of the threads immediately go off topic if the person responding wants to avoid answering the actual questions and points raised. There's an old courthouse saying that covers this situation:

If the facts are against you, argue the law.
If the law is against you, argue the facts.
If the facts and law are both against you, then just argue.

John