Have you ever withheld info about an item?

[Mark]

Originally Posted by cfhofer

If I have insider information which may help another collector I gladly share it. I try to always remember this is just a hobby from my youth.

Yours is a good and honorable approach, and I share what little information that I gather with other, individual collectors. I think we should help all new collectors in on what most veteran collectors know. In hobbies like astronomy or bird-watching, it would be very perverse to play it close to the vest. But this hobby usually involves collecting, and what we collect can be scarce. Some feel competitive about it. Sometimes, it seems to pay to keep things quiet until you accumulate a certain amount, after which you broadcast what you've found so that what you have is generally recognized as legitimate and rare. In my opinion, if you find a previously unknown variation of a baseball card, it is understandable to search for the variation on ebay for a couple of weeks before spreading the news. It would be nice if it was the kind of hobby where people passed along their duplicate t206 Planks and duplicate Babe Ruth bats to others who don't have them. Probably not happening soon, though.