ACCG propagandist John Hooker is advertising on Moneta "I am looking for stories about your personal contact with ancient coins for a writing project in praise of collecting". What he is apparently looking for are anecdotes:about how a coin might have changed your direction in life; How one of your ancient coins reminds you of a special person, time or place; How ancient coins brought you into a fruitful contact with a country or culture, and so on. Something where ancient coins widened your outlook or had an effect on your life in a significant way -- beyond that of numismatics, itself.Well, that last point is telling. Instead of concentrating on the personal aspects of coin ownership, it is interesting that Hooker does not intend to cover what the personal collecting of dugup coins actually adds to everybody's knowledge about the past. Who cares if the trashing of a site produces a geegaw that reminds some anonymous bloke in Wisconsin about his great aunt Sally? Or were persuaded to go on a sunshine holiday to Antalya.
This is the very epitome of the self-centredness that is the root of the problem with these collectors failing to look beyond the edges of their own coin cabinet at the wider context of what they do. It seems to me that instead of engaging in proper public debate about the effects of the manner in which they conduct their self-centred hobby, North American coineys are clutching at the propaganda straws in an effort to prove that what they do is in any way beneficial to anyone. Sadly, they are so caught up in their little world of selfish self justification that they do not realise that everybody already knows that what they do, they do for their own personal benefit and nobody else's.
Since they keep on banging on about this aspect of their collecting, where is the official full and unabridged ACCG bibliography of the last ten years of peer-reviewed published amateur dugup coin numismatic research done by their members?
Vignette: mine, all mine, it's all about ME....
1 comment:
Oh dear, coins as a vehicle of cultural elevation, how many times have metal detectorists tried to pull that one?! One recently told Heritage Action “I metal detect because its the closest way i can get involved with Archaeology” - as if pocketing stuff was somehow his only option and he couldn’t find a less damaging way of being interested in archaeology.
And in just the same way US collectors are being invited to tell Mr Hooker “How ancient coins brought you into a fruitful contact with a country or culture”. What a shame he didn't add the caveat:
“But if you’ve bought a recent British dug-up and you don’t have a PAS number for it you have done damage to the culture of another country so you'd better not claim the coin brought you into fruitful contact with another country as that would be to present a dishonest account of what you have actually done”....
I wonder how many US Collectors would fail the "PAS number morality test"? Approximately all of them? Figures please.
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