I will be happy to offer any assistance that I can, and so will many of the collectors you will find on the internet. So far, this hasn't been a big roblem with antique fishing tackle, but there are fakes out there. First came the repainted lures. Wooden lures, with their enamel paint jobs, are prone to losing paint because of the environment that they were used in. Wood swells with moisture, shrinks as it loses moisture.
Bad paint can kill the value of a very good lure.
Some are honest, and tell their customers the lure has been repainted, but some are not. Even some very advanced collectors have been fooled. All repaints should be plainly and indelibly marked. A few outright fake lures have been found. Usually these are reproductions of very early lures, that because of their simplicity, are easy to fake.