Tuesday, 10 June 2014

Collectors Melting Down Redundant Artefacts: "You Are Doing Right"


It seems nobody is prepared to admit that unsupervised selling of uncollectable artefacts such as "grot coins" and lead artefacts for scrap metal is the wrong way to treat items removed from archaeological assemblages, even surface ones. Now I see one metal detectorist advising another who wrote about doing just that:
Janner, just carry on my friend. You're doing fine and you're doing right.
Melting down  for money archaeological finds which are unwanted for a collector's personal accumulation of artefacts is "right" in the eyes of fellow collectors. And what has the PAS or anyone else to say about that further expression of irresponsible detectorist 'entitlement' and knowledge theft? At what particular stage will PAS or any other archaeological organization step in and say a line has been crossed? How far can detectorists push it before someone starts to take notice?

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