Bowl coating, re - coating and over restoration

Some worthwhile thoughts from Marty Pulvers are at this link
This subject has been beat to death in so far as it relates to new pipes and pipes you own that for one reason or another develop bowl issues. However, there are several issues raised when aftermarket sellers coat or recoat the bowls of all the pipes they offer.
I am only posting the link, not the whole thing, but it is worth reading in its entirety. There was a previous article by Marty on this subject but I missed it and if it is archived anywhere I can not find it.
My personal experience has involved purchasing about five or six pipes from sellers who seem to routinely recoat bowls. My own practice when I bought and sold estate pipes years ago, including on eBay, was to remove excess cake, usually stopping short of going down to the bare wood. That was sufficient to determine whether or not there was a problem. In about 20 years of activity, I never once had someone I traded or sold a pipe to complain of a bowl issue. Every now and then, in cleaning up a pipe, I would discover heat stress or a soft spot that was not apparent on first inspection. I would put those pipes aside and take them to a show, and let anyone interested determine for themselves whether or not the issue was going to be a problem beyond their ability to handle.
Things have obviously changed. It seems the highest prices on eBay at least go to the most agressive restorers. Of the pipes I have purchased from such sellers, only one has been a problem, developing a soft spot very quickly. I know how to deal with that sort of thing, and have done so. Not a huge deal for me, but for someone else?
But the market seems to be saying that buyers want "like new" used pipes. I am not sure that is a good thing. But, there is a saying from the old days in the New York City garment district, " If the customers want green suits, turn on the green light"
But read Marty's article and decide for yourself.

Lots of things can be done to a pipe that wouldn't bother me to the extent of feeling like I had had the wool pulled over my eyes or feeling like I was obliged to disclose unless asked. Sweating out minor dings on the bowl, using a heat gun on Vulcanite stems, light use of an abrasive on the top as long as the original finish remains, etc. I have done each and every one of those things to pipes I have owned for years and are not for sale.
My working assumption now, based on the five or so I have bought, is that any pipe with a recoated bowl is recoated for the same reason I would do it - to fix an issue. In most cases that has not been the case, but one out of five is enough to where I won't bid aggressively in some prominent sellers auctions.

I absolutely do not agree that this issue only is a concern to museum piece collectors. How is a buyer to know whether the cover up undertaken on a defective bowl was done by someone who knew what they were doing or not? Is there a difference in smoking quality after cover-up with waterglass as opposed to diary/carbon based products? What about furnace cement, which I have seen recommended. ? Who really knows?
The practice of widespread offerings of pipes with recoated bowls is something that has changed since I got out of the hobby 15 years ago. It seems to be expected now as a matter of course, whereas back then if I had started offering pipes so treated I would have been given the 3rd degree.

Why should a smoker take a chance on getting a pipe with a covered up defect or that might not taste right? Read the original article, some of these sellers have been coating bowls of pipes that are in fact, new! How and when did this practice become endemic?
My use of the phrase museum piece was hyperbole, but the point stands, and it is OK by me if it is understood as referring to "Rare, valuable, or otherwise significant"
Go back and read Marty's article and try to avoid straining at gnats. This is a really simple issue.

No need to swallow the camel.

Well duh, I guess there must be a really good reason for an eBay seller to cost a bowl of a legitimately brand new Castello.
So simple an issue.
If the maker of a new pipe wants to coat his bowls, that is up to him. For other sellers to do this with every pipe they offer is wrong. Simple

Sablebrush gets it :
"The objections about coating used estate pipes are very valid. A great many of these have heat damage in the base of the chamber because smokers either don't care about, or don't know how to, smoke coolly. "Smoking to the bottom of the bowl" is one of the dumbest and most destructive beliefs in the hobby. Buyers of used estate pipes should always be skeptical of claims."
A claim that a pipe has a sound bowl when the seller has coated the bowl is a claim that can't be verified until long after any return period has expired. Skepticism is a good thing,an underutilized tool.
Marty in fact raised the issue of after market sellers coating the bowls of new Castellos, not me.
If Mike Hagley didn't think so highly of you, GeorgeD, I would think you are being intentionally obtuse for reasons that escape me. Not sure why we are sideways on this, as I don't think you have any sympathy for some of these sellers.
I did not read Marty's article as relating to how far it is acceptable to go in restoring a Barling, a subject that is no longer of any interest whatsoever to me. That is an originality issue.
It does seem backwards to me that sellers who routinely coat bowls of estate pipes get more than those who don't. When I was active, including in the very early days of eBay, a large % of buyers wanted some original cake left. Sometimes I feel like Rip Van Winkle.

As I stated in my OP, I have not had the benefit of reading Marty's first article, which is apparently not archived. The article that I in fact linked to extensively discussed bowl coating in a way that caused me to focus on that issue. The practice seems to be pervasive in parts of the "market" where many of the tricks of the trade would not be economically feasible to do routinely, though I am sure many of them are applied on a case by case basis. I would suggest that this is an issue that can be considered on its own. I have simply resolved to lower what I am willing to offer on an estate pipe that comes from one of the sellers who routinely coats bowls.