I second Dean's nomination as moderator.
I think the larger question is; what do we offer and is it perceived as valuable for someone to fork over their money and join the PGCA. With that in mind who are the people who come to these forums for the first time or limited posting non-members and why. There are the people selling guns, looking for market exposure or advice because they think they might have something valuable or they want to be sure the collector hangout is alerted. Then there are the prospective new or limited knowledge buyers trying to be sure they don't make a mistake in either price or originality. There are also those who have discovered grandpa's old shotgun and want to know if it's worth something, can they shoot it and should they get it restored. There are occasional non-members whose gun broke and they are looking for the best person to fix it. For the most part we provide these services as a group every day, free of charge here in the forums.
If a person has one Parker and wants to know all there is to know or verify orginality we suggest they get Research letter. If the person has one gun they have a choice, $40 dollars for membership plus another $40 for the letter OR $60 for the letter and not join. Anybody see a problem here? Perhaps we should consider all first time new members get one free research letter then you are offering the curious something monetarily tangible and if they join they might stay and start collecting/shooting/participating.
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