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| Mine's bigger Than Yours" |
MarketWatch reports there are 7-10 million serious coin collectors in the US alone. There are no figures about the number of coin dealers in the US, but there must be thousands (individual shows in the US can draw out over 100). In contrast, Doug’s Archaeology page puts the number of archaeologists in the US at under 2000. So, it can be said with some confidence that the State Department is running a special interest program to benefit a very small number of academics [...].Yet there are currently only about 30,000 active members in the ANA, collectors of ancient, US and 'world coins' (see the thread on cointalk where a number of wildly varying answers to the same question can be found). So Mr Tompa is saying that in the USA there are 7-10 MILLION collectors of ancient coins, or 7-10 million serious collectors mainly of Morgans, wheat pennies and state quarters? Why the discrepancy between Sayles' ("fifty years in the business") 50 000 and Mr Tompa's seven million?
Professor Danti, are you watching this?
Can we also get this clear. What Mr Tompa is interring here is that there are "under 2000" people in the US who - because of their convictions - are concerned about protecting archaeological sites from collection-driven exploitation and curbing the profits militant groups can gain from illicit activities with cultural property, and seven million people in the US who (presumably lacking those convictions and therefore) are interested in no restrictions being introduced on buying and collecting goods smuggled out of war-torn Syria, Iraq and potentially supporting the economy of the 'The Islamic State'. Does that really reflect the position of seven plus million coin collectors in the USA? All of them? On whose behalf do the ACCG speak?
The numbers game is always a bit dubious as a means of proving a point. The huge majority of people thought the Sun went round the Earth until Copernicus. That didn't make them right.
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to CPAC decision making, the lobbyist and his cohort always tend to make it a popularity contest. It's about the quality of input into the decision-making process, not the number 'yes's or 'no's. Clearly, there are significant problems with how material is sourced for the trade that handlers are not comfortable to acknowledge, although they defend the status quo with such vigor.
ReplyDeleteNow I see the guy is arguing that: [his fellow coin fondlers] "are a far bigger special interest than archaeologists and, hence deserve, if anything, a much larger piece of the pie". That entitlement again. \
ReplyDeleteIf there are "more" of them with ancient artefacts in their homes ("millions" he claims, with "millions of objects hidden away), then they already have snatched a far bigger slice of the pie than the 97.5% of the population who are not accumulators of snatched ancient artefacts, they already have a large enough slice of the "heritage pie".
Blogger David Knell said...
ReplyDelete"The numbers game is always a bit dubious as a means of proving a point. The huge majority of people thought the Sun went round the Earth until Copernicus. That didn't make them right."
The huge majority of people thought the Sun went round the Earth AFTER Copernicus, as Galileo Galilei for one could certainly attest to ... and then "Oom Paul" Krueger staunchly maintained that the Earth was obviously flat, even at the turn of the 20th century.
There is however a huge fallacy in your argument. Cultural property law (all law for that matter) is not about what is "right."
A very wise old lawyer once told me that in the eyes of the law there actually is no such thing as "truth" or "right." There are, instead, only points of view. That perspective is certainly correct in the case of cultural property law.
When points of view are considered the "numbers game" is quite relevant, since in the first place such laws are made according to various points of view and the extent to which each particular point of view is held.
I fear that in these discussions loose and imprecise thinking is the rule, especially in arguments originating in Warsaw where the prevailing point of view seems to be that archaeology is "right" and that collecting and metal detecting are inherently wrong - by definition.
The actual facts and circumstances involved in any particular case appear to have very little to do with what is presented as "right" in these discussions.
First of all, welcome back, we were worried.
ReplyDeleteAs for right and wrong, "A very wise old lawyer ..." why lawyer? Never met a very wise old priest?
You see the difference between writing from Warsaw and Temecula is that my country (as you so uncharitably and with great relish pointed out not so long ago) was utterly and with full deliberateness destroyed by the Nazi invader. That included an assault on Polish cultural property as destructive as anything ISIL is doing.
As a result, there are very few here who'd take the attitude when cultural property is concerned that preserving it is anything but "right".
I have a feeling that when this is over the people of Syria (except ex-ISIS sympathisers and the out-of-business black market racketeers) are going to have a similar attitude towards what is left. As such I do not think you will have many agreeing with you.
I think you will find that the "view from Warsaw" has rather more supported than the 'smash-it-up-and-dig-it-out' despoilers. After all, it was not without reason that U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry delivered a speech about stopping ISIL in the context on threats to cultural heritage in Iraq and Syria at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, NY on September 23, 2014. I think conservation has a lot more - and growing - public support than the despoilers. Are dealers going to join them, or are they going to try and fight them?
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ReplyDelete' Blogger Paul Barford said...
First of all, welcome back, we were worried.
As for right and wrong, "A very wise old lawyer ..." why lawyer? Never met a very wise old priest?
You see the difference between writing from Warsaw and Temecula is that my country (as you so uncharitably and with great relish pointed out not so long ago) was utterly and with full deliberateness destroyed by the Nazi invader. That included an assault on Polish cultural property as destructive as anything ISIL is doing.
As a result, there are very few here who'd take the attitude when cultural property is concerned that preserving it is anything but "right". '
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Daver Welsh responds:
However, "right" as you perceive that to be is not by any means the same thing as "correct" in the sense of a legally appropriate decision.
Cultural property law is first, last and always going to be about the LAW, not about your point of view or any other matter of opinion (or religion). The law may (and should) appropriately recognize your point of view, but beyond that the operative question inevitably becomes what the legal process leads to, not what you or other Varsovians (or priests for that matter) think OUGHT to happen.
This isn't my point of view but simply recognition of reality. Collectors' rights advocates such as myself have no shortage of reasons to be dissatisfied with the legal process.