... of your feelings. As to this question:

>> I haven't a clue about the legality...but (IMHO) at the point that you have "repaired"
>> the chip by filling in a drill hole or by "cleaning" a cancellation stamp off, YES you
>> have done something unethical and wrong....regardless of intent, and YES
>>: (if a member) you should be disciplined by the club.

... I'll ask you to do the same thing I asked David to do in another message. Please review the club's code of ethics, particularly paragraphs 6 and 7 and then explain to me how you arrive at the conclusion that the conduct described above violates those rules.

In my opinion, it does not; nor does it violate any other club rule. And, like it or not, that's all I can report to the board (and that's the only basis upon which any of us can justifiably criticize the conduct of another).

Your airplane example is not apropros because of the safety concerns involved. If your car gets in a collision and the fender is dented, do you replace it? Does that make your car a counterfeit? Is it then unethical to sell it, even if you tell the buyer about the repair?

Or, how about if the paint job has faded and you repaint it a different color? Counterfeit car? Unethical to sell? Obligated to tell the buyer that the car has been painted? Or, in fact, is that one of the selling points?

>> However, it IS likely that, at some point in time, many (or all) of the "repaired" brass core
>> chips will be offered for sale for the price of chips in "excellent" condition as opposed to
>> "cancelled".....after all, they're not drilled.

You may be exactly right. BUT, does that mean we have the right to punish someone NOW for conduct which does not violate our rules, based on what we think some other currently unknown person is going to do at some unknown time in the future.

Somewhere, tomorrow, someone is going to use a gun to kill some other person. Does that mean today we can punish every person who legally sells a gun just because it might be used to commit that future crime?

We have a set of rules. We made them. People act in light of those rules. If the act is within the rules, it is simply not fair for us to suddenly say, "Wait, we don't like the possible future effects of what you did, therefore we are going to punish you now even though you didn't violate the rules."

>> As the bearer of the bad news, I'm sorry that you also have to bear all the repercussions!

Nah, I don't mind reasoned disagreement and I can take it (and give back! ) with most anyone (well, Pete Sanders makes my head hurt sometimes). But, I do appreciate it when the disagreement (or even criticism) is well-reasoned and civil, as was yours.

>> (and what in the heck is O/-S???)

Old story, going back to my days on CompuServe. Though their use seems to have fallen into disfavor these days, the old computer "emoticons" (like :-) :-( ;-) and so on) prompted me to create what I called an "identicon", which is a personal identifier icon. You have to look at it sideways, the way you did with the emoticons and, if you squint your eyes and use a lot of imagination, it should look like a little runner:

o\-S

Thanks for asking and for sharing your opinion.

----- jim o\-S