I may get some flack over this one but I hope you all just listen to what I have to say and consider it - I accept that there is no one absolute right answer.

I need to speak my "heart" here because something doesn't feel right to me about this whole Mel Jung issue.

I have been a member of this club for about 10 years. I know Mel Jung, I know Dean Porter, I know Nate Pincus and many many of the principals that are at the cornerstone of the founding of this club. In my "judgement" of all of these individuals (and myself as well) I could be critical. I can say, without hesitation, that not one of us is a perfect individual. If you are a member of this club and you trade, and you sell, and you wheel and deal, you will eventually have a track record of people who think you are an absolute "prince" because they got a great deal from you, and you will have people who say "watch that guy" because they felt that your trade was too one sided and tipped in your own favor. It comes with the territory.

But still, this hobby was built on "Heart", and it is the heart of each one of us that teaches us best over time to not be too critical of the other guy, it is the heart that helps us overlook infractions of justice and put them into a larger perspective - it is pure unadulterated Heart, the "love of what we do" that was and still is the driving force behind the growth and health of this hobby. I don't want to mess with that force - I want to preserve it!

Mel Jung may have done something wrong. I don't know. Really, if you boil down all of the investigation that I read there is still no conclusive proof of outright illegal, coldhearted, cheating, and ill-intentioned dishonesty and fraud. It is still, in some critical ways "his word against the other guys". What I do know, is that at this point in time he has definitely gotten the message that HE CROSSED "THE VERY BIG LINE" THIS TIME and I am sure he has heard that message loud and clear. Considering Mel's venerable history, his contribution to the hobby, and the numbers of people whose lives he personally affected and whose collections he has helped to build - shouldn't this be part of our judgement of Mel as well?

Dean Porter, Is a very experienced member of this club who has been around this club and Mel Jung, and is more of a Brass Core Expert than anyone else in this club except for Mel. Let's assume he made a bad call based upon Mel's poor judgement and incomplete description of the history of the pink $2.50 chip. It sounded to me in the report that Mel assumed responsibility by offering Dean his money back. I think a lot of Dean, he is a big person, (what we used to call a "Mench" in this hobby). He can accept the responsibility of perhaps suspecting the chip was not authentic given his personal knowledge of brass cores, and how rare this chip is known to be. He could have looked very closely at it. He could have been suspicious but, in the final analysis "trusting" of Mel; and he can admit that his emotions got the better of him. He made a bad call to buy the chip and was wronged, either intentionally or unintentionally by Mel, in retrospect.

Dean did the right thing, he brought to light the issues surrounding Mel's poor judgement and the issues surrounding Whalen and many of the Brass Cores. He did this hobby a great service - but does he really want to see Mel Jung expelled from the club? Is this "Justice" or is this the "letter of the law" being dealt in lock step fashion? Perhaps this hobby with its history of "Heart" is overlooking "Justice" in it's finest sense.

If it were a new person who had just come into the club two years earlier and a couple of people had had questionable dealings with this person, I would say there is justice in expelling that person. This is Mel Jung we are talking about who has a history of building this club and has unfortunately demonstrated his human-ness by making a bad judgement call and crossing THE REALLY BIG LINE. We have given him a REALLY BIG MESSAGE at this point and we can even further restrict his "commercial" activities for a probation period to send a bigger message - but expulsion from a club that he personally had a hand in building is in my opinion reacting TOO FAR OVER THE LINE and is another action of mis-judgement and perhaps using "power" too indiscriminately. As much as I have the utmost respect for the job done by The Board and what must have been incredible angst over coming to their conclusions, I personally wish The Board would, if they could, revisit it's wielding of "Justice" and be careful of the delicate balance The Board holds between the power of The Love that built this hobby and the appropriate but sometimes indiscriminate "letter of the law", The Power, that maintains this hobby.

This is just one mans "heart" speaking a very humble opinion because something doesn't feel right. I have tried to keep out of this whole mess, but it just keeps coming back to me - in my mind, this must be said.