I am sure Nicolas is a great person, what I cannot understand is who would start collecting militaria, or anything for that matter, without having any idea as to what they are doing. It seems to me that his collecting plan was to find things for sale and then ask everyone on the forum to evaluate it for him and tell him it was worth buying. Basically he was looking at spending $400.00 on something he knew absolutely nothing about (in this case a BD Tunic with some badges) and to top it off had no idea what questions to ask the vendor.
What is it, people just wake up one day and figure they will start to collect militaria? I cannot for the life of wonder why a person would in this case want to purchase a BD Tunic without even knowing enough to ask the basics like size and when it was made. I can understand coming in and saying that in this case with the BD Tunic that he was interested in buying this dated whatever uniform with these badges and did the combination look correct, but to appear to know absolutely nothing, amazing.
To top it off, the basic information is out there already, thirty years ago there was very little information and you learned by trial and error, it seems now that it is just too easy to sit back, type questions and await the answers. What happens if the members of the forum say the item is good and the person goes out and buys it only to find out is is not what they expected? Perhaps it is a better lesson learned if some of these new 'collectors' just go ahead dump a few hundred dollars on something that is less than what they expected.
Dave, thanks for helping this fellow out, perhaps next time you can stop lurking on the forum for a couple of minutes provide him with some of your wisedom or at least direct him to your store. How is that for playing nice?