Collectors unite! You have nothing to lose but..... eh?

Apparently, though Roger Bland apparently wants to "have the law" on me for writing about portable antiquity issues, I am not all bad. If you read the numismatic press I've even been caught out praising Ancient Coin Fondlers. In an article in World Coin News January 22, 2009 by Richard Giedroyc it is said that Wayne Sayles wrote something or other in response to:

"an unintended compliment the ACCG received from archaeologist Paul Barford in a recent blog. In that blog Barford calls the ACCG "the most prominent ancient coin collectors' lobby group worldwide".

A moment's checking reveals that I do indeed write those heart-warming words, but it seems Mr Giedroyc misunderstands the context. Quelle surprise, it seems Mr Giedroyc does not understand several other things, which it seems he's apparently copied from an editorial in Celator magazine of December 2008. He writes:

The Ancient Coin Collectors Guild is defending more than collectors of ancient coins against special interests in archaeogical (sic) circles who would outlaw collecting ancient coins if these people could legislate it. Readers should understand that the ACCG is defending all collectors regardless of the age of the coins in their collections, since these special interests claim just about any object of any significant age is the cultural patrimony of the country where it was either found or originated and for this reason should be repatriated to that country regardless of who has current title to that object.

He forgot the stamp collectors. ACCG and its allies are defending stamp collectors against the same mythical nasty, nasty dirty coin-hating archaeologists. And banknote collectors and stuffed wallaby collectors. All collectors, except those US collectors of Nazi memorabilia (it does not mention their "rights" in its press releases).

A message to Coin collectors: whereas these guys are counting on your ignorance, read the relevant documents for yourselves, not just the snippets someone else foists on you. Try to think about what you read, don't just think what others tell you to think. Then you'd be able to spot the glaring fallaces in statements such as the following:

"The Peoples' Republic of China, as an example, has been defining ancient coins of China as those being struck prior to 1911, while attempting to demand the return of their ancient coins from private collectors and museums by lobbying
the U.S. government for legislation that would mandate it."

Now it seems to me that decent ethical folk collecting Chinese coins and wanting to buy coins exported from China should actually know the relevant laws and discussions related to that activity. It seems to me from what he wrote that Mr Giedroyc does not. Let him put a justification of the above statement in his next World Coin News article and leave me out of it.