This is a true story and being written at this time with the idea of helping collectors. By collectors, I include bottle bugs, insulators, relics and anything collectable. There are those people who will use and abuse another collector and their club. As an insulator collector and the first serious collector in our club I had many requests for information. Being an outgoing person willing to help and get other collectors started I was willing to share all the information I had available. I took my books to meetings and even lent them out, thinking I was doing a favor to all interested, but low and behold, the unscrupulous had to start their unfair advantage. Bottle diggers and those that don't dig but call themselves horse (bottle) traders were picking up the odd and the old and coming around to my home for information. They would ask all kinds of questions and get around to "how much"? If I explained that price would be determined by really how much a person wished a certain insulator, they then wanted to know if I was interested. If I had offered a fair price they would run to another collector and make a competitive thing out of an honest effort to help. And then there is the one that asks you to write other collectors and see if you can sell for them. You get a phone call, look up the party, make the offer for the insulators the seller agrees with price with absolute honesty or so you believe, and then you call the party back, make the arrangements.

The next day the seller comes around and figures he has a fortune in his hand, so backs out of a deal, leaving the guy or gal that was trying to help, holding the bag. So beware all you good natured collectors. There are a lot of people that have no interest except their wallets. These people are not interested in collecting anything except enemies, and in the end that is what they have. They usually find that no one will deal with them after they have pulled the shady deals on the unsuspecting in their own club.

These are two true stories and told in hopes that it will enlighten some of you to the type of people you will meet. Most experienced collectors have had this type of joker approach him, but the new collector might get taken in by just such a person, so you new collectors watch the trader and the digger, he's ready to give you a lesson and sometimes it is costly in friends and finances. In closing this story, I would use an old adage that I should have used before I tried to help. "It is best to keep your mouth closed and seem a fool than to open it and prove it."