Wisconsin Reverend has Metal Detecting Friends in the UK

.

I've discussed US coin collecting men of the cloth on this blog before. I was interested to note another case involving a gentleman I've mentioned here earlier as not seeming to care a hoot about the ethics of collecting dugups from the archaeological record of far-off countries. He is from Grafton (where else but lootier state home of the Republican collectors' rights declaration Wisconsin) and has long been a fixture of several coiney lists posting his observations and lucky "finds" (of dugups in the auctions). On the Uncleaned coin list however his next little escapade caught my eye today because it was the post just before Mr Blazick's Austrian dugups post discussed in blog below this. Reverend Bulgerin's post is innocently titled: Uncleaned Coins on eBay , but these coins do not come from just "anywhere" but from good old PAS-land, the coin collectors' paradise:

I have several auctions for uncleaned Roman bronzes from England on eBay. I also have a real nice uncleaned Licinius I follis for sale with the "Buy It Now" option. Please take a look at all my offerings Thanks! Paul Bulgerin

Sure enough there are a number of listings by ebay seller Samhan 53024 which bear this text:

I have been fortunate enough to make connections with someone in England who is a member of a metal detecting club. He is shipping me coins that are fresh from the ground in south-eastern England.

Fresh from the ground from a UK metal detector club owner, eh? Let us note however that there is no mention of PAS record numbers for these groups of coins. There's an example of what goes on in the UK under the label "responsible metal detecting". There's an example of what is understood among coineys as "responsible coin buying" by somebody who should know better. No doubt they will be snapped up by equally "responsible" collectors thankful for England's totally lax legislation which allows collectable and saleable stuff to be mined from archaeological sites by day or night for just such a no-questions-asked market. Rev. Bulgerin really has no guarantee that his anonymous "friend" is not nighthawking these goodies from the nearest scheduled archaeological site, has he? Rev. B. also makes no mention whatsoever of whether of his friend has obtained export licences for the bulk export of ancient dugup artefacts (as required by UK law) which the American clergyman is selling on eBay.

The lots on offer by Reverend Bulgerin and advertised as "from England" at the time of writing include:
Uncleaned Theodora PIETAS ROMANA AE-4
Uncleaned Gratian GLORIA NOVI SAECVLI AE-3 from Arles
Uncleaned Constantine II . . . Beautiful Green Patina
Tiny 10 mm. CONSTANTINOPOLIS Commemorative - Lovely!
Six Dirty and Semi-Crusty Roman Bronzes from England
Rare, Uncleaned DIVO CONSTANTIO AE-4 - Lion Reverse
Nine Uncleaned AE-4s from England
Nice Little CONSTANTINOPOLIS Commemorative
Four VRBS ROMA Commemoratives - UK Detector Finds
Five GLORIA EXERCITVS AE-3/4s . . . UK Detector Finds
Constantine I GLORIA EXERCITVS with Branch on Reverse

Also I would not be surprised if some at least of the other coins he is offering at the moment came from the same UK supplier, the mint marks denominations and condition are typical of British site finds.

While many of these coins are typical finds, that does not mean that they need not be recorded as findspots. However some of the coins this seller lists are described by their seller as quite rare - so unquestionably PAS-recordable. Their sale here without a record having been made (despite a mechanism being put in place at no little public expense to ensure this happens ) is just as bad as the clandestine and illegal looting of sites in the Balkans which supply many of the bulk 'lots' of uncleaned coins Rev. Bulgerin apparently so delights in. In the case of the metal detected coins on sale by the Reverend under our very noses, the thieving away unrecorded of these pieces of evidence is the thieving away of part of the record of the location, extent and nature of Late Roman activity in an unknown locality in Britain. The thieving away of this evidence with no mitigating measures of recording and record is eroding the archaeological record and repeated erosion leads to its destruction as a source of knowledge. This is knowledge about the past that the public outreach body the PAS was set up to stop, this is the theft of knowledge from everybody. Rev Paul Bulgerin and his metal detecting friends are thieving away the common archaeological heritage of Britain, a country his fellow US coin collectors constantly praise for having what are allegedly (from their point of view) "the best laws" to protect the interests of the finder and the archaeological record. Here we see perfectly clearly that given that there are people unconcerned about the niceties of responsible behaviour towards Britain's fragile, finite and precious archaeological resource, the British antiquities legislation is as protective of the archaeological heritage from damaging commercial exploitation by artefact hunters as a sieve in a rainstorm.

Rev Bulgerin earlier posted a message saying "I have received some more uncleaned coins from my friend in England". So it seems quite a number of dugup coins has previously gone straight from the soil of archaeological findspots in the UK to a US coin collector and petty dealer. Perhaps we are seeing here part of the process which accounts for the discrepancy between the numbers of finds reported to the PAS and the number of finds it may reasonably be estimated have been made by thousands of metal detector users combing the "productive" sites for collectables over the past few decades. Despite thirteen years of PAS "outreach" and their joyfully announced "number of artefacts on record to date" statistics, we are obviously still losing the bulk of the archaeological evidence taken out of the ground by artefact hunters and collectors without any kind of record being made at all. All because of individuals like no-questions-asked buyer and dealer Reverend Bulgerin and his unconcerned metal-detecting friends in their "clubs" all over the British Isles.

Since we learn from something he wrote earlier (if he did what he said he was then planning) the Reverend actually spent the summer working on an archaeological excavation in England, at Vindolanda, it seems very likely that we see here how the US clergyman was able to "make connections with someone in England who is a member of a metal detecting club". Was the person supplying him with coins straight from the earth from a metal detecting club near Vindolanda? Was the person selling abroad these coins which he found on local archaeological sites with his metal detector a volunteer on the Vindolanda excavation? Where in fact did the coins Rev Bulgerin is selling actually come from?

Rev B. ends most of his ebay listings: "Let me know if you have any questions about the coins I am offering. I'm a collector who loves ancient coins". I think anyone who loves archaeology and historical preservation would have quite a few questions to ask Reverend Paul Bulgerin about where he gets the coins he collects and writes so much about from.

And I am sure if the PAS was doing its job properly it would have too - both for Rev. B. who should know better as well as the metal-grabbing oik who sent (sold?) them to him. If Reverend B. thinks the latter has done nothing wrong, let him reveal his name.