The Abu Sayyaf Stash Value Again

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Thaddeus Gutierrez  addresses a post on Peter Tompa's lobbyist blog which claims that the Al Sayyaf stash would not buy much military equipment. Dr Gutierrez shows that this is a groundless claim.

 This grouping of recovered antiquities, according to my estimates, could EASILY fetch $40,000 on the wholesale market, not including the tablets, seals, and various metal artifacts

and then gives some specific examples of what one could buy with such a sum.

He furthermore notes, referring to Red Arch, that "it is refreshing that there are activist attorneys who recover looted cultural heritage and pursue prosecution of the thugs that Peter [Tompa] protects".


And what has the International Association of Professional Numismatists to say of its representative's inability to defend his ground, merely whine that his critics are not being blocked by the moderators - as he himself blocks comments on his own blog by his critics? 

UPDATE 20.08.2015: Peter Tompa later stormed out of the discussion, leaving no response to the refutation of several of his glib claims, muttering "Apparently, some members of this group don't believe in polite debate" and then making some out-of-place remarks about killing archaeologists because they can all be associated with the Assad regime, or something like that - the logic of his reasoning was unclear. The notion of "polite debate" is foreign to most collectors, artefact hunters, dealers and their lobbyists. Mr Tompa was simply unable to face the fact that several people who were not his usual sparring partners gave reasons not to accept what he said. So decided to withdraw ingnominiously like Hogarth's Lawyer Silvertongue in my earlier vignette.  IAPN are you watching?


Vignette: Guns the lawyer says can't be bought.