Coiney Straw and Chaff

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John Hooker on Moneta-L claims 'Sometimes, you just have to feel sorry for the opposition'. The reason for his feigned sympathy is "the comment to one of Paul Barford's blogs made by Safe Corner" (actually for several days now they can look at it in a full post). In both the US-based preservationist organization SAFE (Saving Antiquities for Everybody) clarifies its position with regard to false rumours circulating that it was intent on "banning collecting".

Hooker, however, invites his coin-fondling readers to ignore SAFE's clarification and focus instead on the bit where it says:

However, antiquities are more than just aesthetic objects of beauty; they serve as historical evidence of the past.

This is somehow controversial for him. He calls it an "obvious example of the "Straw Man Fallacy"...". (A term he feels he has to define for his coiney readers with a link to a Wikipedia article !) This is why:

the impression is that we are interested in ancient coins because they are so beautiful and we have no other ideas about them beyond that [...].The use of such an obvious fallacy is a typical example of "yellow journalism", something you might expect from a writer for the "National Enquirer".

But of course SAFE was not talking about coin collectors but (look at the name) the collection of antiquities - sold by many dealers in the US and beyond as "ancient art". The fallacy here is Hooker's representation of a generalisation as referring to a particular issue. This narrow misrepresentation of what the clarification was about is of course in itself a typical coiney example of the utilisation of a straw man fallacy as a rhetorical device. Hooker further points out to the Monetans that:

The second issue, is that most of the people who are part of the "Safe Corner" team have no experience at all in numismatics, often, "one trick ponies", they do not understand the complexities and the span of the subject and the important -- even vital contributions made by independent numismatic researchers who are often also collectors and dealers.

Let us recall that the topic of discussion is whether aesthetic values of an artefact as a collectable trump the other ones destroyed by the manner of its removal from the archaeological record and subsequent treatment as an isolated collectable. Hooker suggests his coiney readers should ignore all this as (a) coins ancient and modern are not all equally aesthetically appealing and (b) SAFECorner is not a numismatic blog. The logic of that is beyond me.

Hooker quite pointedly does not address several key issues in what SAFECorner wrote (in fact the series of postulates about the destruction of the evidence of the past following from the treatment of ancient artefacts as attractive collectable geegaws to which the quoted passage directly refers and introduces). In fact its almost as if he is trying to deflect attention from them. They are:
1) Principles of supply and demand influence illegal antiquities trafficking,
2) High demand can entice others to illegally excavate archaeological sites, smuggle illicit antiquities, and sell stolen objects.
3) Such unlawful and unethical behavior permanently destroys information about the past.
4) Consumers of antiquities should recognize this (and take action accordingly)
5) Respecting laws is hardly "radical" behaviour.
You do not have to "be a numismatist" to understand this (in fact it would seem that being a dugup-coin-fondler actually hinders comprehension of these very issues)

SAFE's position on collecting and related issues is unambiguous and has been published on its web site. It refers to dugup antiquities in general (Greek vases and terracottas, shabtis and scarabs, classical marble and bronze statuary, knocked-off Buddha heads, seals and amulets etc etc) and yes, also dugup coins and metal 'partifacts' sold singly or in bulk. And frankly it does not matter whether one is collecting dugups as pretty geegaws, to help in your neo-pagan meditations, to fill a hole in a collection of a series (such as camp gate reverses or zoological reverses of Gallienus), to wear around your neck or use as a "pocket piece" or because they were given out by coin dealers as freebies at school, their decontextualised "surfacing" on the market involves the destruction of archaeological evidence. No amount of protest and weasel-wording by dealers and collectors should be allowed to obscure that simple fact.

What is more, if collectors were truly interested in those "other aspects" of the geegaws they collect and fondle, as part of a true source of real and multi-aspectual information about the past, then why is it they are so against collecting and trading in a manner which ensures the preservation of the source of that information? (Or responsibly desisting from collecting if they find they cannot?) "Numismatists" say "archaeologists" don't understand them. I say coin fondlers show time and time again that while professing an "interest" in "the past" and "preservation" (like the majority of UK metal detectorists), they really do not really grasp what this discussion is about. They demonstrate that there is something in their collecting-consumed mindset which is blocking them from comprehending the (I would say fairly simple) issues raised by the preservationists' position as outlined above. Why is this?
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