~~~ within many collector communities within their online sites.

Just recently I found an item and went straight to a website's forum asking a question as to who the manufacturer was and without even hinting about fishing for a value. Not a single reply. Then, about a week later I emailed one of the members who was retired military informing him of what I felt was the cold shoulder... Even though he responded to my email, in no way did he even come close to answering my question with explaining he and his fellow collectors spent a lifetime doing research and did not care to freely share it with someone who wasn't a collector. So, what you see here may be just as common as what I was told and, it was not the first time I have been told that by collectors in several collector hobbies.