I look at antique hunting as a pleasurable activity if not overdone, which is easy to do if my wife has her way.
I don't understand your ambivalence about superior knowledge giving you the chance to get a bargain. That is simply an extension of hunting at its origins. Maximum payoff for least expenditure. It is perfectly legitimate.
The alternative: Let the government decide prices. I think you know the consequences of that. Besides, who is the government? Just some organized people, after all.
I see no ambivalence in helping battered women or teaching children to read. However, feeding the hungry does have ambivalence. For example, in The Sudan, the harsh climate provides only enough sustenance for X number of people, and you feed X + Y people because they are hungry. Then X + Y people survive, but the environment can only sustain X. The consequence of that, if you stop feeding X + Y, is that X + Y people starve to death instead of only X being pretty darn hungry. You also destroy the native ability of those people to provide for themselves, and enable warlords to gain power.
If I were you I would rejoice in every antique bargain that I find. Last night on "Antique Roadshow" a fellow displayed a nice ceramic hot chocolate pot and five matching ceramic glasses. After some discussion it was revealed that he paid $23,000 for them, to which I could hardly contain my sarcasm. But the appraiser said the pot alone was worth $28,000 and the glasses were worth $7,500 each!
So if that fellow can find a greater fool than he, he should take advantage, don't you think? |
