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nized as similar are determined by the type. But who is to judge the criteria for similarity or sameness? The problem of doubles seems to be an ontological one but, rather, is a pragmatic one. It is the user who decides the "description" under which, according to a given practical purpose, certain characteristics are to be taken into account in determining whether two objects are "objectively" similar and consequently interchangeable. One need only consider the case of industrially produced and commercially available fakes: the reproduction does not possess all the features of the original (the material used may be of lower quality, the form may not be precisely the same), but the buyer displays a certain flexibility in the evaluation of the essential characteristics of the original and considerswhether from thriftiness, snobbery, or indifferencethe copy as adequate for his needs, either for consumption or for display. The recognition of doubles is a pragmatic problem, because it depends on cultural assumptions. |
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There are cases in which a single token of a type acquires for some users a particular value, for one or more of the following reasons: |
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(i) Temporal priority. For a museum or for a fanatic collector, the first token of the Model T produced by Ford is more important than the second one. The coveted token is not different from the others, and its priority can be proved only on the grounds of external evidence. In certain cases there is a formal difference due to imperceptible (and otherwise irrelevant) features, for example, when only the first or a few early copies of a famous incunabulum are affected by a curious typographical imperfection that, since it was later corrected, proves the temporal priority of this or these copies. |
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(ii) Legal priority. Consider the case of two one-hundred-dollar bills with the same serial number. Clearly, one of them is a forgery. Suppose that one is witnessing a case of "perfect" forgery (no detectable differences in printing, paper, colors, and watermark). It should be ascertained which one was produced at a given precise moment by an authorized maker. Suppose now that both were produced at the same moment in the same place by the Director of the Mint, one on behalf of the Government and the other for private and fraudulent purposes. Paradoxically, it would be sufficient to destroy either and to appoint as legally prior the surviving one. |
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(iii) Evident association. For rare-book collectors, an "association |
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