A Google search reveals that Californian coin dealer Dave Welsh yesterday reposted a text from this blog onto the Museum Security List, well after I had replied to his earlier comments here. In his repeated comments the dealer publicly announces:
"I can presently - from what I now know - see no alternative to regarding Mr. Barford as standing revealed as being a liar".For the record, Welsh accuses that I (1) "deliberately misrepresented the results of a study which said nothing more than that more than half of the ancient coins in question were UNPROVENANCED". It is in fact the case that the cited study says nothing of the sort. So it is not me that is misleading anyone, but Mr Welsh.
Welsh advances an alternative theory (2) that I allegedly misunderstood the CPRI study "as implying that an UNPROVENANCED coin is a STOLEN coin". He suggests I "very carelessly misunderstood the nature of the study in question, and then irresponsibly wrote the inflammatory post in question without exercising due diligence". Unlike Mr Welsh, the reader will perceive that I certainly made no reference to the study itself as implying that. I think rather this accusation is due to Mr Welsh's careless reading of my text followed by his irresponsible eagerness to write the inflammatory post in question without exercising due diligence or having the common decency or sense to check his primary facts. Presumably he is discomfitted by the fact that the implications of the study's figures (intended to demonstrate something else) taken with other data implied that the US market is overwhelmed by freshly imported coins from foreign "source countries", rather than being fuelled by material from old collections as coin collectors interminably try to convince us ("Petrarch collected coins don't ya'll know?"). Even a cursory examination of the text to which Welsh refers will show that nowhere do I assert that the study itself implies that "an UNPROVENANCED coin is a STOLEN coin".
Welsh demands an apology.
In that event he certainly owes the ACCG and the coin collecting community a public apology for unintentionally (but still culpably) making these untrue remarks. If such an apology is not forthcoming, then I can presently - from what I now know - see no alternative to regarding Mr. Barford as standing revealed as being a liar.So in order to escape the verdict that I am a "liar", I have either to admit that I deliberately misled the reader - in other words that I lied (alternative 1) or apologise for mistakenly saying something I did not actually say (alternative 2). Since it is impossible to make a sincere apology for something I did not do, I guess I will have to accept that Dave Welsh has publicly accused me on the Museums Security Network and elsewhere of being a liar.
Mr Welsh sells dugup coins. Mr Welsh should watch his words. Mr Welsh really should not try to engage in discussions for which he is not intellectually or emotionally prepared, because all it leads to is more puerile coiney name calling.
4 comments:
Owes whom an apology? The ACCG ? Now I could understand that if what Welsh alleges were to be true, I might have owed the CPRI an apology, so how did the ACCG suddenly come into the equation?
As for "the collecting community", they buy what the dealers offer. If dealers offer unprovenanced coins then that is what they buy if they want to collect coins, so to whom would this hypothetical apology be due? Collectors or dealers?
It seems to me that the ACCG mantra that it is in the collector's interests that it is engaging in a head-on collision with government and the rest of civil society is getting out of hand. welsh is presuming here to speak for ALL coin collectors (note the word "ancient" is missing). By what right?
“Mr Welsh sells dugup coins. Mr Welsh should watch his words.”
Blimey, yes, it’s easy to forget that’s what he does for a living when he’s in full self-righteous flow saying others are liars and rogues! ‘Tis a horrible, grubby trade, and that’s a plain fact, the unspoken-of embarrassing underbelly of collecting, hardly a sound platform for moral pronouncements against others!
And to compound it by telling everyone that PAS’s advice to only buy stuff if you are SURE it is of licit origins is “naive”! Well! No it ain’t, Mr Welsh, it's dead easy to say no. Ethical dealers manage it just fine! And strangely, none of THEM feel obliged to blaggard Paul Barford...
Paul
Re-read this post from 'Robyn' along with the attached comments.
Best wishes
David
Yes it is really pathetic how when a collector does dare to step out of line and declare that they want to see the market cleaned up the usual culprits jump on her and start HOUNDING her. There is no other word for it, and no excuse for it either. Just what is it that Welsh, Sayles and Tompa and the ACCG klingons are trying to achieve by such behaviour?
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