"Earlier this month", says John Winter (A Rare Gold Quarter Stater), "an exceedingly rare gold quarter stater of Togodumnus was offered for public sale by Liz Cottam of Chris Rudd. This was a first. Only three others have been recorded and they are all in museums". Somehow, I guess, it is supposed to be a good thing that this one isn't. The coin was found by only-in-it-for-the-history artefact hunter Tom Lesurf.Mr Winter's text has a telling link to a wannabe scholarly article citing PAS staff on how coineys go about mixing pictures and writing on a disc of metal with some written sources to "write history" - the inscription though is CVN and not CVNO, isn't it?
Vignette: Coin dealers: metal detectorists' other partners - keeping archaeological heritage out of museums and making a nice profit in the process.
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4 comments:
Sorry Paul would you rather it be stuffed in the back of a museum storage room with 90% of the other coins and artifacts that museum's have ?
In a reserve collection? Properly entered in the catalogue system you mean? Under monitoring by a professional curatorial staff? yes, not loose in coin case in some cupboard of an anonymous private collector and then disappearing when they die.
What have you got against museum study collections Mr Baines? Ever used one?
What suggests that if this GOLD coin worth ten thousand quid is one of only four known in the world, that it would actually be "stuffed in the back" of anywhere? Are the other three?
It was a lovely coin to find. It is a pity that it was sold. I assume it was sold in order to give the landowners a share of the value. Much as I am in favour of donating finds like this, few detector users are wealthy enough to be able to fork out half of its value.
No, you've got it all wrong, haven't you?
The coin and its full value belong to the LANDOWNER. The coin does not need to be sold to give the landowner what belongs to him.
The coin is sold to give 'half the money' to the artefact hunter (metal detectorist). You know those people who say "not-in-it-fer-the-money, just-the-histry"...
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