Allan my friend,
Thank you for your post. I never believed or questioned your love and concern for our hobby or Michael's or Ernie. I know you "guys" care and I know that our disagreement over "approach" is genuine.

I have read your post over twice to be sure I understood the WHY.I don't like the WHY anymore today than I did when I wrote Observation #1

Allan in my mind increasing the value by any amount sends the wrong signal to those who believe a benefit is obtained by repairing a chip. I realize you are trying to show the benefit is only equal to the repair cost but never the less I still believe any value other than "A" can be mis-understood.

When you place a value of "A" there can be no mis-understanding the message. Any collector who would than pick up TCR #10 KNOWS what the authors intended.

As you know, and it is sad, collectors often do not read the notes in TCR. they only look at the values. Sad as it seems some even say "there's notes - where?"

I disagree that Whalen can repair without being able to tell. I have seen examples of his cross-hatching, etc. and find that if one looks hard enough you can find where his repair was.

Finally Allan, the reason I am so strong on this is because those who support slabbing will use the concept of "repair" as a key point for supporting slabbing. It will happen and I see it coming.

I believe the authors of TCR must demonstrate through their publication the "disgust" the collecting fraternity has for altered and repaired chips. If not in our publications where than will the message come from?

Thanks again Allan and take care.

Jim Perlowski