John, at the risk of seeming contrary, I will answer with my understanding of the content of the thread. There is a chance that I did not see all of the posts, but had read all as of 5 am GMT of 3-22-04.
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,Geneva">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,Geneva">Mike's integrity was being questioned </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,Geneva">I do not know that Mike's integrity was brought into question, rather there was question of judgment concerning provenance and research required in a major purchase. If there was a statement concerning his integrity, I did not read it.
No one was accused of being dishonest. No one was called names. No one was libelled. If there were statements concerning anyone's honesty, they were posted after my last reading.
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,Geneva">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,Geneva"> but your opinion doesn't make Ed wrong </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,Geneva">Ed stated that if he was wrong in this action he has offered his apologies. Ed is a wise man and knows that there are only two types of people in the world: those who are right; and those who are wrong. I wanted to assure him that he was wrong.
You are entitled to a differing opinion concerning this, and power to you. (I have kept my response concerning "decisiveness" in the same vein of gentlemanly civility as you generously displayed toward me.)
The disposition of this particular pistol is germane to the Luger collecting community. We and our collective reputation are now in the public view. We must not bury our heads in the sand but learn and profit by the misfortune of one of our fraternity.