I find the world of forgeries fascinating because it speaks of the human mind, how our desire to make something real blocks our perception and any kind of criti

I find the world of forgeries fascinating because it speaks of the human mind, how our desire to make something real blocks our perception and any kind of critical thinking. That's most fascinating thing about this whole field. Supposedly smart people who no doubt consider themselves critical thinkers, many of whom have been wildly successful at business, keep getting tricked into spending millions on obvious forgeries. I watched this documentary on wine forgery and it was the same thing there. People were paying $100+k for bottles that a simple 2 minutes google search would prove fake. Things like vintages from several years before the vineyard was founded, completely incorrect labels for the wine and vintage they where claiming and wines from years when that particular wine wasn't made. It's clear that for most people the actual authenticity of the items in their collection means absolutely nothing to them. All that matters is that it's convincing enough that they can fool their peers (and themselves). As long as you never let an expert verify your collection, everything in it is in fact authentic. And once the scam was uncovered their anger wasn't so much directed at the people who scammed them but at the experts butting in a ruining everything.