Surprising News: Dealers Only in it for the Money

Once upon a time in Coincollectalandia, there was a significant database of old coin auctions, A.J. Gatlin's CoinArchives. This had become the principal source of information not only about past sales prices to guide bidding in online auctions, but also the pictures for playing the game of 'spot the difference' (aka. "die studies"). This was one of the traditional mainstays of the pricing policies of the smaller businesses and a source of reference for the domestic erudites trying to 'write history' with their decontextualised dugup geegaws who could not afford to buy books. Then one day the inhabitants of this unhappy land woke up and found this "service" it had gone from being a free service to a fee-paying one if you wanted full access. The fee asked was $600 a year. There was a gnashing of teeth and a renting of garments. There were immediately two dozen conspiracy theories hatched, based on suspicions that there was some kind of behind the scenes conspiracy of the auction houses and bigger dealers (for whom such fees were not so onerous as for the smaller competitors) behind this. Not long before that somebody had hacked into the Wildwinds database and nearly destroyed it (the damage was eventually repaired by volunteers).

But the Coincollectalandians could take comfort in the fact that there was also the comparatively new database on the same lines, ancient coins Search (ACSearch), but lo and behold it was not long before they too began to have problems with pressure from the major dealers, and they have withdrawn huge chunks of information pending "legal clarification".
In connection with this the latest bad news to rock the quiet cul-de-sacs of Coincollectalandia, Reid Goldsborough asks:

Who is behind these moves? Is it the auction houses? Who knows? But right now, because no information is being provided, people are speculating. And the most logical conclusion as far as I can tell with what we know right is that auction houses and dealers are trying to restrict the flow of information, as they did earlier with information about counterfeits with the cessation of the Counterfeit Coin Bulletin, because they think that keeping information to themselves will help them earn profits.

More interestingly he goes on to say:

Same with the ongoing provenance catastrophe. Information about context, including findspots and hoard data, which would significantly enrich our knowledge about coins and history, isn't preserved because dealers and auction houses feel it doesn't help them earn profits, with the utter mess at source countries also being a crucial factor here. All this leaves me, and hundreds if not thousands of other collectors, extremely disheartened. It's just money, money, money, in the most venal sense, with no thought of the common good, of how the ultimate benefit of ancient numismatics is spreading and gaining greater knowledge and appreciation of our collective past.

Well, that is a poke in the eye for the Ancient Coin Collectors Guild, run mostly by dealers, isn't it? Perhaps parts of "protecting the rights of collectors" should be the right to information at a reasonable cost so they can get on with contributing together to the "ultimate benefit of numismatics" and increasing knowledge of our collective past". So what about it Mr Sayles? Are the Ancient Coin COLLECTORS Guild you head going to oppose the greedy manipulating dealers and support the collectors against their money-grabbing schemes which they say are detrimental to their abilities to practice their hobby and use it to enrich our knowledge of the past?

As for the "utter mess at source countries" I presume that Mr Goldsborough is referring to those that buy illicitly obtained coins without due diligence in ascertaining their precise source, but that's the dealers too, isn't it? That is "the crucial factor here". Not just in the trade in ancient dugup coins either.