Shopkeeper Evasion, Dead Pigs, Ancient Coins and Cowboys

It was still yesterday in America when I was today labelled (Wednesday, June 29, 2016 What the Collecting Community is really Up Against) an "archaeomaniac" (sic). Why? It's because of my allegedly "true ultra-Socialist, or perhaps actually Communist" idea that anybody who wants to claim that the goods he is selling are licit, should be able to demonstrate that. A "revolutionary" idea it seems for some shopkeepers.

This is an overt demand for proof of licit origin, with a declaration that any artifact for which documented proof of licit origin is not available is to be presumed to be illicit.

Yes, an overt declaration that if Mr Welsh sells me half a pig for my freezer which he got from a bloke with a truckload of them in a Walmart carpark, he'd better have the health certificates that indicate that meat is not infected. Otherwise I'm not buying. I don't trust coin dealers with paperless  dead pigs or anything else.

Let's be clear about this: If [these] ideas are accepted, even more stringent burdens of proof would fall upon collectors than this new German law dares to impose upon German collectors.

("dares"?) Note that, collectors get lumbered with the costs of their own carelessness here. If a dealer ("trust me") can con a collector into buying things without paperwork these days, sooner or later a collector at the end of the chain is going to find themselves lumbered with duff goods which they can do nothing with. But this is not "Mr Barford's fault", it is the fault of stupid collectors buying stuff no-questions asked. Collectors should read the 1970 (1970 that's 46 years ago, 'Nam days) Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property- start with article 10 and wonder why US dealers have for all those years fallen short of the standards it sets. Ask yourself why they have failed to even make a start in all those long years to live up to the standards of transparency that ethical and responsible trade in such a commodity requires. How many artefacts in that time have passed through and been systematically "orphaned" from their true collecting histories in the US market alone? Why? Ask yourself.

Dealer Dave however does not actually address that issue, preferring instead to veer off into personal attack, questioning my "credentials"  (I think he feels one can write poetry without being a poet, or technical papers without being a technical writer), being simultaneously a "caped crusader" (Cf Sayles' "Space Cadets" junk) and allegedly a "Communist" with allegedly "a past to hide", but then rather illogically he compares me to Rudolf Hess [who, as far as I know was not a communist].

this almost indecipherable man who apparently wishes to become an "Archaeological Eichmann" who ferociously exterminates collectors. 

I think it is pretty clear from that that Mr Welsh has absolutely nothing substantive to say about the matter of transparency in the antiquities trade.  

Vignette: Some dead pig dealers are unable to supply buyers with certificates of health for their goods. I would advise not to buy anything from anyone who's not got the proper paperwork showing licit origins.  That is not being the "enemy of all butchers" just those that want to conduct cowboy businesses with zero transparency and accountibility.