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Fakes & FraudsFabricated provenance

11th Dec 2015 12:32 UTCDave Owen

I had a couple of Bisbee specimens purchased from me recently,one from a known collection the other from a guy with a bucket of rocks from an old miner in town. Both of these specimens ended up in a high end mineral auction in California. Both specimens had a fabricated provenance apparently in some sort of attempt to establish one of the buyers father as a prominent collector of Bisbee minerals. Possibly for future credibility on specimens but I don't know for sure. I don't believe he was in fact anything but a miner who brought home rocks. Along with this a story was created about the one specimen possibly coming from an unusual find in one of the mines in the early 1900s. This seems seriously wrong to me but wanted to get some input.

11th Dec 2015 13:56 UTCBob Harman

Fabricating the provenance of a specimen is simple and only one problem when many higher end specimens can also have their true description, condition and previous repairs etc also falsified.

The rare coin and stamp market has dealt with this for many years, taking a photo of each example and applying a certificate of authenticity that is generally accepted by all collectors and dealers down the road. For several years now I have argued for this approach to be started for hi and very hi end examples. Simply put, each and every hi and very hi end specimen should be accompanied by a photo and attached detailed specimen description including condition and provenance, then signed by the hi end dealer(s). When accompanied by these certificates, it would make it that much easier to buy and sell these specimens down the road.

I also hasten to add that I am talking about higher end examples. If your rocks were $100 - $200, there is not much that can be done about changing or fabricating labels, but when the examples get to 4 figure and higher prices, it would be nice to have accompanying certificates assuring all the buyers and future dealers of the quality of each specimen. CHEERS.......BOB

11th Dec 2015 15:49 UTCDave Owen

I think the one with the interesting story which is possibly a fabrication was given an estimated value of 8-12 thousand . when I showed the specimen to one of the most knowledgeable Bisbee collectors he had told me 300. Apparently the high value was tied into the story.

11th Dec 2015 15:56 UTCKyle Beucke 🌟

Dave,

Yeah, that is seriously wrong. Guessing locality info is bad enough, but knowingly falsifying data takes a "special" kind of person. It is too bad (and surprising) that a collector would do something like this!

Bob, not sure why this would only be a concern with "high end" stuff, but I am assuming it is because 1. Greater financial incentive to falsify label and 2. A presumption that people are not going to go to this much trouble documenting a lower-end specimen. The falsification of data associated with ANY specimen is bad, period. What if a donated specimen or collection is used in a research project and false locality data is incorporated into research? Either way, how much confidence should we have in a certificate such as the one you described? And who would be the trusted person(s) to sign off on the certificate? What if a "high end" dealer is given a collection of mislabeled specimens and then sells them? It just seems that it would not be possible to truly know the entire chain of events a specimen has gone through based simply on a label that is associated with it at that time. Maybe if a miner/collector who found the specimen could sign a certificate with photo of the specimen, we could have more trust in its origin.

Kyle

11th Dec 2015 16:07 UTCDave Owen

11th Dec 2015 17:12 UTCMario Pauwels

In this case it looks very easy to trace back the cheater, most likely the same guy who bought both specimens from Dave. I can hardly believe that the auction house is involved. And I also believe that you should report this to the auction house.

Best regards,

Mario Pauwels

11th Dec 2015 17:58 UTCBob Harman

KYLE, Nothing is perfect or fool proof, but the certificates work well for rare coins an stamps. From a practical standpoint it could be started by hi end dealers who sell individual items with megabucks changing hands. It could also be started with hi end collectors wanting some proof of what they own and have purchased, even for insurance purposes in addition to future resale. I have taken several pictures of my highest end examples along with an enhanced label description and they seem to work well when showing the specimens around.

Of course it might work with lower end specimens, but to my mind it would not be worth the time or effort as so many similar examples are out there and the modest attached fee for any certificate of any type over and above a routine label and bill of sale might add enough $$ to dissuade a potential buyer who just does not have the financial resources to put into lower end examples with certificates. I think these collectors might be the ones to attach pictures of their specimens to the labels when it comes time to sell or trade these lower and moderate end examples. You might be surprised how well received this kind of accurate specimen identification might be when any money changes hands. CHEERS.....BOB

11th Dec 2015 18:44 UTCRonald J. Pellar Expert

Bob, most stamp experts are vetted by some international organization with training, standards, and a expertizing provenance of their own! In addition the stamps in existence along with their production quantities, varieties, and methods are well known and documented. The mineral specimens are continually "appearing" on the market very many varied, uncontrolled, and/or unknown sources, including artificial creations of various sorts, so that original sources, condition, etc. cannot be reliably established to the degree needed for any guarantees.

With regards to "mineral certificates", they would only be pieces of printed paper without a money back guarantee to go with them. I don't think that it could be made to work in the mineral world.

11th Dec 2015 19:47 UTCBob Harman

Yes RON, I know very well about the stamp certificates as I had and sold a large and valuable collection in 1997. Not only did I have many certificates, but had some classic stamps of the US Canal Zone sent to me for evaluation when certificates of authenticity were being considered. The point you make about the stamp printing quantities known (vs the unknowable numbers of rock specimens) is a good one, but for very hi end mineral examples from certain well known localities I believe specimen photos/certificates might still work. What I believe won't work are any attempts to issue ones for the myriad of moderately priced mineral examples from all over.

Having said all of this, in the absence of any attempts to change things for the better, the original posed problem of falsified label provenance and other falsified labeling attempts will just persist or even get worse as prices for the hi end examples continues to stay hi or climb higher. CHEERS......BOB

11th Dec 2015 22:55 UTCHolger Hartmaier 🌟

As a collector, it is troubling to hear about cases of faked provenance of mineral specimens. It is our curatorial duty to maintain records on when, where and how we obtained our specimens, so that this information can, in good faith be passed on to the next owner. I agree with previous posts that known instances where fakery can be proven should be reported to the parties involved, especially if one is an auction house. However, I can also understand that there may be a reluctance on the part of the reporting individual to get involved as it may develop into a frustrating and messy legal can-of-worms.

It is also conceivable that a buyer recognizes a certain specimen as having legitimate historic or collector significance that has not been recognized or acknowledged by the seller. If the purchaser then re-sells the specimen at a premium price because of the now newly created factual provenance data, I can see that the original seller may feel cheated or question the validity of the provenance.

Personally, I've never had the "pleasure" of purchasing any specimen that came with a record of provenance, other than some with original collector or older dealer labels, which can also be faked. I tend to avoid any specimens that are being sold at an obviously inflated price (say relative to other similar minerals of the same quality) solely on the basis of a story which may be true, but cannot be validated independently.

Ultimately it is "buyer beware", and if the provenance story is an important factor in purchasing the specimen (regardless of asking price), you should also have the ability to independently verify the authenticity of the provenance, either by experience or specialized knowledge.

12th Dec 2015 00:23 UTCAlfredo Petrov Manager

Jolyon designed the minID system on Mindat precisely to document chains of provenance as Bob suggested. Instead of photos attached to labels, you have the photos uploaded to Mindat. Best of all, it's free. We just need more people to start documenting their pieces this way. There are plenty of high-end dealers already up loading photos of good specimens to Mindat. We just need the future owners of those specimens to use the same minID on their labels and the problem is largely solved.

12th Dec 2015 02:51 UTCTony Peterson Expert

This looks like a good place to ask a question about the control of my specimens and their Mindat-hosted information, when I sell them or when I leave them in my estate. Will the next owner be able to add their name to the chain of owners? Add new photos, valuation, etc.? It was my intention to leave my Mindat logon info behind me so my Mindat collection file could be examined. I'd like Jolyon to address these issues and tell us more about the mechanics of minID and the ownership chain.

Tony

12th Dec 2015 06:07 UTCAlfredo Petrov Manager

When a future new owner of one of your specimens, Tony, uploads a picture of their newly acquired specimen to the Mindat database (or their Mindat personal collection catalogue), we can assume that they will want to keep the provenance history intact. (Provenance adds value to a specimen, so why would anyone not want to keep the provenance intact? (unless they stole the piece?)) All that is needed for them to do to keep the chain of ownership intact is to make sure the same minID is kept. In case they should choose to not upload a new picture to Mindat, they can just write your minID # on their paper label, so future owners get it.

12th Dec 2015 14:04 UTCRob Woodside 🌟 Manager

A good reason to label your specimen with its MinID.

12th Dec 2015 14:14 UTCTony Peterson Expert

That is a step towards answering my questions, but not enough to satisfy me. Perhaps I will start a new thread when the issues crystallize in my mind. Meanwhile, rest assured that I consider the existence of a minID to be a contributing factor in a specimen's value. Again, I applaud Jolyon for this initiative.

t

12th Dec 2015 20:26 UTCRonald J. Pellar Expert

One problem with the MinID is a later purchase may upload a photo as a new specimen (inadvertently or deliberately) and have a new MinID assigned to it. These multiple MinID's for a single specimen can cause great confusion eventually. Policing this problem gets harder and harder the larger the photo database. You would require a "vetting" process on each and every upload to compare the new with old ones and hope the photo's are approx. the same aspect.

Any other ideas for eliminating duplication?

13th Dec 2015 01:31 UTCAlfredo Petrov Manager

Ron, I'm assuming that later purchasers will want to keep the old minID. If that doesn't happen, and a photo gets uploaded with a superfluous new minID, all it takes is for someone to notice the identity and then we can change the new minID back to the old one. But I don't think that will happen too often, as most buyers/inheritors will want to keep the provenance intact.

13th Dec 2015 01:56 UTCBob Harman

I read over RON's posting a few times and I now agree with ALFREDO. As I understand this, each specimen will get a unique MinID #. Over months or years as the specimen changes hands thru sale or trade or donation etc., the new owner need just re-register it on Mindat and the original ID # will follow along. Only in those (hopefully) very few instances where the ID # is not re-registered, inadvertently incorrectly re-registered, or purposely misregistered will there be a break in the chain of specimen identity and provenance.

This sounds like a good and workable plan. CHEERS......BOB

13th Dec 2015 13:34 UTCReiner Mielke Expert

If I buy a specimen of say calcite, I am not going to go through 100's of photos of calcite to see if the specimen I bought has a min ID before uploading it as a new specimen. Even if I did, the chances are that the photo of it will be of a perspective that I don't recognize, or that the sample I have has been altered ( trimmed, damaged)? The whole thing will become unwieldy after a while which suggests that this ID system only be used for "high-end" specimens not your ordinary stuff. Also what about polished sections which just show a tiny area of a sample or massive samples that all look the same? If you insist on using a min-id for everything then you will just have to learn to live with dulpicate numbers, I have.

13th Dec 2015 13:57 UTCLarry Maltby Expert

Here is an example of how to use the MinID. I uploaded this photo of a well- known Morganite on Tourmaline specimen that was making the rounds of all of the major shows in the 70’s. It seemed to me that it was likely that someone else may have uploaded a photo of the same specimen so I did a search on “tourmaline from Pala, California”. And as you may expect, Rock Currier had uploaded a photo of the same specimen in June of 2009. I wrote down the MinID number that was assigned to Rock’s photo and then logged his number on my upload page.

The upload pages have a place to do this with these instructions:

Specimen minID

Every mineral specimen has a unique minID. If your photo contains a mineral specimen which has already been issued a minID, please enter it here. If empty, a new minID will be allocated for your specimen.

minID:

Click on the photo below and then click on the MinID to see how it works.

13th Dec 2015 14:03 UTCAlfredo Petrov Manager

That's very true, Reiner, I agree. My assumption was that the vast majority of collectors will want to pass on the minID # to the next collector, so no duplicate ID would result. But it wouldn't be worth fretting much over for medium-grade specimens of common species.

13th Dec 2015 15:10 UTCTony Peterson Expert

Larry's contribution highlights a problem with minID that I think others have hinted at in previous months, and which troubles me. In my view only the current owner of a specimen should have a minID assigned to a new photo. It makes no sense for an ID to be assigned to a specimen via a photo taken, e.g., behind a glass wall at a show or a museum. This condition could be easily applied: there is a checkbox for the contributor to indicate that the specimen is in their possession. If unchecked, well then, no minID.

There is no problem with a new owner adding new photos under the same ID, of course: this is obviously a good way to check that no damage has occurred, or a thumbnail has been cleaved off, etc. Color rendition is a huge function of camera and lighting. I have used three different Canon cameras recently and I am stunned at the differences in color they generate. So more photos are OK.

As for the proliferation of minIDs for minor specimens (and no doubt many collectors would dismiss most of my specimens as minor. Not all of them :-)), Jolyon assures us that there is effectively a universe of IDs available. So what does it matter?

Tony

13th Dec 2015 15:27 UTCLarry Maltby Expert

Alfredo and Reiner,

You guys are right. The use of the MinID is limited and will be likely only used for unique specimens. There are a lot of Pala tourmalines on Mindat and it took quite a bit of time to find Rock’s photo. I should have done the search on morganite. Rock did not record the date of the original photo or where it was taken. It can be deduced that the photo was taken prior to 1976 because, in his photo, the specimen is not mounted on a base. By the time it was sown at the 1976 Detroit show, the specimen was mounted on a base and David Wilbur had added his signature label. I am sure that this specimen has been pictured in books and magazines and much more information could be found with research. There are many people still living today that know all about this specimen. Perhaps some of them will comment and add to it's history

If someone gets motivated to do some research on a unique mineral specimen, the MinID is a neat tool.

13th Dec 2015 17:47 UTCJolyon Ralph Founder

We will never get rid of all duplicate minID numbers as reiner's calcite example shows. But I see in the future there will be ways to deal with this.

1. You don't need to search through all the calcite photos. You only need to search through all the calcite photos of approximately the same dimensions and locality. We will need to add tools to make this possible.

2. You don't even need to search through at all. Simply use the new minID in your catalogue and be blisfully ignorant of any old minID that was assigned to the piece in the past. In the future, if you or anyone else notices that there was a duplication the minIDs will be merged. The rules for merger are that the minID that is listed as the OWNER of the specimen gets priority (so make sure you either use mindat catalogue or you tick the box 'this is in my collection' when uploading a photo). If two people tick that box for the same specimen then the most recent photo is assumed to be from the current owner. Once merged the old minID will be redirected to the new one, and all data associated with the old minID will be linked back to the new one. At that point you may find other photos appear linked to your specimen.

3. In the future we'll also likely have sophisticated tools for photo comparison to identify shapes and structures within photos, and compare them in 3d to other photos, to find possible duplicate specimens even if lighting and position are different. it won't work if the specimen is 180 degrees rotated but if done right it should be a very powerful tool.

13th Dec 2015 18:23 UTCJohn M Stolz Expert

Here's another issue to complicate things:

Many dealers post pictures of specimens that eventually get sold. However, I haven't seen one MinID recorded on an invoice--even though some sites like MinFind will identify the MinID if there is one--nor is there a way that I can see to associate the mineral with your collection unless you add a photo of the specimen. But again as someone already pointed out, I doubt many are inclined to check if their specimen already has a MinID.

13th Dec 2015 20:28 UTCRalph S Bottrill 🌟 Manager

It will become much more useful if dealers take to using it, so it will show on labels, catalogues etc. But there will be a problem with old labels etc that the MinIDs will change - unless we have a way to track them to the newest ones?

13th Dec 2015 22:02 UTCBob Harman

I am happy that this thread has started some ongoing dialog. With a bit of creative thinking and creative options, planning for better long term identification of higher end mineral examples might now just take hold. CHEERS.......BOB

14th Dec 2015 23:44 UTCPeter Van Hout

From Dave Owens original interesting topic is nothing left since the debate now is only about that minID. BTW a minID will not exclude such fraud

Peter

19th Dec 2015 10:53 UTCJohn M Stolz Expert

I wouldn't be too hard on respondents; it's not like they sucked the life out of an interesting topic and replaced it with some droll argument that has no bearing on the issue. Its just that there's not much one can add to or discuss on hearing Mr. Owen's story other than be yet again reminded that many people have no integrity whatsoever.

The Min ID at least provides a means for attaching a record to the specimen. At risk is whether the record is accurate. And perhaps if someone decides that the benefit outweighs the administrative hassle, one night establish a database of sorts reporting stolen specimens or specimens with dubious provenance, or...?

19th Dec 2015 12:19 UTCKeith Compton 🌟 Manager

Hi guys

Although partially alluded to in the above messages, my concern is where a minID is actually physically attached to a specimen (ie is used for cataloging purposes by a collector) and later gets sold, exchanged etc and the next or later collectors are either not aware or obtain a new id - what then happens to the original record if the ids are later merged and the new merged number does not match the number attached to the specimen but uses the new owners id.

If an old id is merged into a new id does the old id get issued again. If so then the provenance definitely will be lost because the id attached to the specimen (the original id) will now relate to a totally different mineral specimen.

I like the idea of the minID and I have been trialling it. Currently I use it conjunction with my own mineral catalogue. I realise that my own collection numbers are meaningless once the specimen changes hand, which is why I was leaning towards using minID as a numbering system for more "permanence".

The minID concept is still relatively new and the "rules and guidelines" are a bit light on and can be difficult to find. Even searching by minID is not so straightforward, but perhaps over time it will get better.

Keith

19th Dec 2015 14:48 UTCRob Woodside 🌟 Manager

"The rules for merger are that the minID that is listed as the OWNER of the specimen gets priority (so make sure you either use mindat catalogue or you tick the box 'this is in my collection' when uploading a photo)."

I'm not sure that a constantly changing MinID is the way to build provenance. I would have thought that the MinID ought to be written in stone, so the oldest MinID would have priority.

However Mindat is not even on a shoestring budget. We can't afford the string!!! So letting the current owner get new MinID for a price might help?

20th Dec 2015 07:43 UTCChristopher O'Neill

Hello,

Another scenario. I have already posted a mineral and it has been given a Mindat ID, but now I plan on trimming it, potentially becoming two specimens.

In a sense, the original specimen and it’s Mindat ID no longer exist.

Now I want to post one of the two “new specimens”. Does it get a new ID or keep the old one? Can I replace the original photo of the "whole" specimen with the new "half specimen" and keep the same Mindat ID?

Regards,

Chris

20th Dec 2015 14:09 UTCLarry Maltby Expert

Christopher,

Yes, you can keep the original minID. When you post the second photo just type the old minID in the appropriate place on the up load form. You could even photograph the other piece of the specimen and add the old minID to that photo also. Be sure to explain in the description that the two new photos are of the trimmed pieces. You would now have a complete record of what happened to the specimen. This is exactly what the minID is intended to do.

To accomplish this,don't replace the original photo, just add the new photo with the old minID. I think that the minID is a neat feature and I agree with Rob that the best way to use it is to always keep the oldest minID number.

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