The Deceits Behind Lobbying for No-Questions-Asked Antiquity Dealing

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Both sides of the portable antiquities debate accuse the other side of misleading their readers, both sides claim the verbal opposition is making a noble cause look bad (the White Hat Guys say the lobbyists for the no-questions-asked are misrepresenting the nature of that market, the Black Hat Guys say the preservationists do not recognise the "benefits" that no-questions-asked collecting bring to the world). Let us have a look at how they go about constructing their argument. My text is the latest post ('Witches, Warlocks and Trolls', Mar 26, 2012) on coin dealer and lobbyist Wayne Sayles' blog. Here it can be clearly seen how the readers attention is misdirected by sleight-of-hand from a fuller understanding of the issues. This is typical of everything the whole group write, so worth a little attention.

The Convention
For dugup dealer Wayne Sayles, the year 1970 "witnessed the apogee of [...] cultural extremism in the world". By this he means that the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property was written. According to the dealer, this Convention to regulate the illicit trade in cultural property was created by "persuasive fanatics that lacked common sense and foresight" and it was a "social outrage" which "totally ignored the basic rights of individuals". He says for some reason that "stewardship of [cultural] preservation is not a fitting topic for government intervention". Eh?

Somehow I think Mr Sayles is looking at a different version of the text of that Convention or looking at it in a different way from the rest of us. Like a number of other conventions of the same genre, it talks of simple things, like education, the universal values of culture and the right of nations to define and protect their own cultural heritage. Like the other international documents of this type, it urges governments to protect the cultural heritage for its citizens and the rest of us. I really do not see where anybody who claims to be "interested in culture" (and goes on to the extent Mr Sayles does about the role of individuals in its stewardship and protection) can take exception to a convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property. What is the problem to an entirely licit trade? I can see where it might be a problem for dodgy dealers who want to 'cut corners', but this would not be anyone with whom Mr Sayles would want to be seen keeping company, would it?

Sayles has some problems with calling a spade a spade. He writes:

Pressure from the archaeological community led to U.S. legislation implementing the UNESCO convention's resolution regarding import, export and ownership of cultural property.

We do not have to take his word for it, let us just remind ourselves of the proper title: "Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property". Not "import, export and ownership of cultural property" but the "illicit import, export and transfer of ownership of cultural property" (the convention does not deal at all with "ownership of cultural property" per se). It seems clear that the coin dealer is trying to mislead his readers as to what it is the US legislation concerns: illicit dealings in cultural property (and so not just dugup antiquities, but stolen paintings, silverware, church fittings and Napoleon memorabilia etc.).

The Opposition

Dugup coin dealer Sayles insists that back in Ronald Reagan's day: "The U.S. law, however, did not give carte blanche to the warlocks of self-righteousness. Specific protections within the law provided barriers to excess", so presumably allowed a little bit of illicit trade to continue? How so? He deplores:

The ink was hardly dry on the UNESCO resolution before the crusade against private collecting began, [...] Today, the level of attacks against those who oppose national control of their personal cultural freedom [to benefit from the illicit trade in antiquities - PMB] has seriously escalated and that "crusade" is being led by ultraists.

There is in fact no "crusade against private collecting" any more than questioning some of the acquisitions of US museums in recent years is a "crusade against museums". Both are an attempt to raise awareness about the illicit trade in dugup antiquities. Obviously a campaign which is hitting home.

The Wedge

Despite what dugup dealer Sayles asserts, it is not the Convention to combat the illicit trade in antiquities which [in the US] has driven, as Sayles would have it, "a deep and perhaps permanent wedge between archaeology, museums and the private sector of collectors and independent scholars". It is the refusal of US dealers and collectors (both of whom like to think of themselves as "independent scholars") to face up to their responsibilities in the light of the continuing and perhaps even escalating illicit trade in antiquities.

That's what the wedge is. It is between those who admit there is a problem, and - "personality defects" or not - are determined not to let it pass without comment and to do something about the issue, and those who try to pretend (and persuade others) that there is "no problem" and refuse to contemplate doing anything about it. The latter want us to believe that they are supplied harmlessly and sustainably by the coin elves. Now it seems they are claiming that looting and smuggling of dugup antiquities are myths created by "Trolls with personality disorders". They do love their myth-making and fairy tales, do coineys.

Sayles bemoans the fact that:

All of the advocates in this confrontation suffer from the breakdown of interchange in ideas and knowledge that the pre-UNESCO world enjoyed.

Well, we have seen the level of argument the coineys can offer as justification of maintaining the no-questions-asked status quo and their inability to back up their statements when challenged. I do not know if this means they are stuck in the 1960s, pre-Convention world, but it is clear that there is nothing to regret that there is these days their is limited interchange of their ideas and knowledge due to their insistence on maintaining their hobby in the same modus operandi as pertained in the nineteenth century ("goes back to Plutarch don't y' know"). They are isolating themselves by their refusal to drag themselves out of the nineteenth century into the modern world with its modern problems (including the current form of the antiquities market). And there are many examples which show clearly that, instead of the objective truth, they are backing up their position and trying to drum up support by employing misdirection and deceit.

Comment From Thinking Collector

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A collector who has his own mind sent a comment to an earlier post (since I suspect that not everybody reads the comments here), I'd like to draw attention to two portions:

I let my membership in the ACCG expire. Their statements make little sense to me, nor do I think their strategy protects the long term interests of ancient coin collecting.

I totally agree, I suspect they are losing other members, hence the "David and Goliath" push recently trying to convince "World coin" (ie modern coin) collectors that maybe it is their turn next (it is not of course, the idea is patently ridiculous). Up to a point [the matter of 'protection' of the artefacts], I agree with much of the second bit too:

I believe that individuals should be allowed to be guardians of cultural objects. Dispersing them does protect them and make them available to everyone. But it is a role of stewardship and responsibility. The interests of all current stake holders and future generations must be taken into account. As others have noted. historical sites are a vanishing resource. What about the interests of children and grandchildren? And theirs?

From my own observations, I concur with this collector's view that there is little free and informed discussion of these issues among ACCG/Moneta-L coineys, their self-appointed leaders do their best to nip that in the bud wherever it breaks out.

"Jargon", Ethics and the Law: Dealer Dave Obfuscates

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Dealer Dave asks us to believe that coiney campaigners against the application of CCPIA (which regulates imports of certain types of artefacts when they are unlawfully exported) to dugup ancient coins are not "on the side of the looters". He says "it is hard for me to understand how anyone could get such an impression". On the other hand, it seems to me that only by believing in coin elves does it become possible to believe that those who campaign for their "right" to buy coins unlawfully exported from another country "are not on the side of the looters" (and smugglers to boot).

Dealer Dave castigates Questioning Collector Chris: The way your message is written indicates that you have been influenced by archaeologists' jargon -- which tends to spin discussions of artifacts collecting so that it develops on their terms and their goals are achieved. The dealer implies that "using archaeologists' jargon" in discussions in a manner which implies "ethics violations and/or criminality, when the conduct, actions and motives discussed may in fact be
honorable and lawful". Welsh then goes on to explain that this "jargon" includes words like "looters", "looting" and " loot", "thieves", "owners" and "authorized parties", "stealing", "illegal origin". He furthermore suggests that the use of "archaeologists' jargon" leads to "spinning" of "discussions ethically acceptable according to the beliefs held by the general public". Stealing is "ethically acceptable" in the beliefs of the general (American?) public? Wow. If a dealer in ancient dugups really does consider that the difference between an "owner" and a "thief" is merely a matter of "jargon", one really would do well to be very diffident about buying anything from him.

Dealer Dave ("Classical Coins") adds:

In reply to your concluding question: "I would love to continue collecting ancient coins but I do not want to do business with thieves. I would like to know that I have clear title to coins that I purchase. Is this still possible?"
If you acquire ancient coins (whether or not provenance documentation is available) from an ethical dealer, you will not run any risk of "doing business with thieves." You will have clear, valid title to the coins you purchase. An example of confusion arising from archaeologists' jargon is the existence of such unwarranted concerns in the minds of collectors. What archaeologists think, and their jargon, will not influence the judge whose interpretation of the law determines validity of title.

So the law trumps ethics, every time. He says that if one acquires ancient coins even if no-questions-asked from an ethical dealer, you will not run any risk of "doing business with thieves". Is that true? Is it true that any attempts to collect responsibly are merely submitting to "unwarranted concerns" about the nature of the goods on offer on the no-questions-asked market?

What is an "ethical dealer"? Is it a dealer affiliated with the ACCG and its fight against restrictions on the importation of unlawfully exported artefacts? How can that by any stretch of the imagination be regarded as an "ethical" attitude?

Antiquities such as coins smuggled from countries which have vesting legislation establishing state ownership over such antiquities are by definition stolen (STOLEN). That is not "just jargon", that is an uncomfortable fact which dealers and collectors wish to deny; that however does not make it any less of a fact. Therefore, it makes no difference how"ethical" a dealer claims himself to be, buying coins of such origin freshly arrived on the US market would mean doing business with culture thieves. How does Dealer Dave define "ethical" if he cannot even agree with the rest of us what the word "stolen" means and dismisses it as mere "jargon"?

UPDATE 16:03:12
As expected, Dealer Dave's post awakens the ("it's the state that is the thief") Numismorons.

Antiquitist Exceptionalism

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Dealer Dave alarms:

"in reality, it's ancient coins today, early modern coins tomorrow, and all other types of antiquities thereafter".

What? He would mean those like the antiquities that are already on the designated lists appended to MOUs which the ancient dugup coins feature alongside? Talk about navel gazing...

Dealer Dave is for some reason proud that the:

The ACCG's valiant efforts are the only effective resistance from any organization to the onward march of this bureaucratic Goliath.

This 'bureaucratic Goliath' is the US government's Cultural Property Protection Program which basically restricts the import into the US of certain types of unlawfully exported items.

I would say that it is at the least thought provoking that whole sections of the US market in art, ancient art, antiquities, ethnographic material (such as icons) etc manages to comply with US legislation on the import of such items (including MOUs and Designated Lists). There are no groups equivalent to the coineys' ACCG in the rest of the US art market, no protests, no court cases, no fighting talk of torches and pitchforks marches on Capitol Hill. So what is it about US coineys that they see their problems as any different from those of other importers of related items. What is it that convinces them that they are, and should be, an exception? What actually is their problem with getting proper export documentation or declarations for the fresh material they want to bring onto the US market? Why are they fighting shy of doing so? What is it that makes them want to buy material which has no proof of lawful export to sell to their customers, and actually convince those clients to go clamouring to the US government saying they WANT to buy such stuff, that they do not care how it came onto the market?

This should be a puzzle to all normal people, so I wish the coineys would explain it in a way which makes sense.

Arguing the Cause: ACCG's Thought Police on Hating

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ACCG's John Hooker fancies himself as a bit of an expert on psychology. He castigates collector Chris Rose for criticising dealers opposed to enquiries into looted antiquities and writes that he has been 'duped' by the preservationists:

It surely does not take a great genius to realize that hate sites are hate sites, regardless of what good they claim to be doing, and that some of the most prominent of the authors of these sites are highly suspect because of their use of generalities, the deliberate use of logical fallacies, and so on. There is really no difference between such people and cultist fanatics who have caused so much devastation to lives throughout history. It is always best to judge people by the way they act, and not what they say. In the seventies I risked my very life fighting against cultists and terrorists. I know them well.

The image of some aged coin collector or dealer risking his life facing archaeobloggers raises a smile. Who are these 'suspect' most prominent authors? Dave Gill, Paul Barford and Nigel Swift (whose blogs receive the most visits which would be one way of measuring 'prominence')? Is Looting Matters a "hate site"? Is this blog really "a hate site"? Heritage Action?

The reasons why I have the views I have on artefact collecting and the artefact trade are well-documented here in over a thousand texts. I would imagine that if the whole lot was based on "logical fallacies" the tens of thousands of collectors would have been able to find a champion to point out where in a consistent and well-argued manner. Where is that opposing view? On Unidroit-L? (Joke), Moneta-L? Giedroyc's posts in Coiney Tabloid? The PAS website ? (joke); in the comments section under my posts? It seems to me that the logic is what is entirely missing in the arguments of the advocates of no-questions-asked collecting.

Again, readers can judge for themselves whether David Gill, Nigel Swift or I base what we say on "generalities". It seems to me that these resources discussing what they do are basing their texts firstly on deep research into the various issues discussed, and the use of concrete examples to illustrate the point. That these are not invented cases is indicated by the fact that each and every post of that nature has a link to a source where (unless those responsible, on learning it is being discussed, hide it - not infrequent among metal detectorists for example) the reader can check that neither Barford, nor Gill, nor Swift are making things up.

Undoubtably this blog at least presents a certain picture of the whole. But that is because it is a blog, the personal view of its author. I do see no-questions-asked collecting as a wholly negative phenomenon. I do think British policies on artefact hunting are damaging and need to change. I do think the PAS is doing too little to address a whole range of issues that it is clear they should, and so on. And that is what I say. I think there are enough advocates of "the good we do" position (including the state-funded PAS) to counterbalance what I say to the contrary, and I do read them myself.

Why would it surprise anyone that given the circumstances (or how after a lot of research into it, I perceive them) I do not write "what a lot of good is done by plundering the archaeological record for collectables for personal entertainment and profit"? I just do not see iot that way myself - and here I explain why. What is "wrong" with that? What is "wrong" with people like Chris Rose reading what I write alongside other reading material and thinking about it and drawing their own conclusions?

What have the ACCG Thought Police got against collectors reading this blog? I would say the material produced by the ACCG contains a fair amount of hate-language, in the case of one of their writers almost certifiably so.

UPDATE 17.03.12: Rose answered Hooker on Unidroit-L, Hooker did not understand the answer. Mr Rose explains it for him:

Your combination of stonewalling anybody who tries to move the debate beyond a tantrum and wild accusations with no basis, well, it is impressive, and is convincing support of my position beyond anything I can say.

Focus on "Metal Detecting": Bitter and Stout (1)

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Texas metal detectorist Dick Stout over on his own blog comments on 'Portable Antiquities Collecting and Heritage Issues' ('Paul Barford...One Bitter Individual', Stout Standards March 14, 2012). After you take away all the personal stuff about the blogger, his alleged motives and his having a degree in archaeology, we learn that the American expects a blog on artefact looting and trade to have more "positive" and "uplifting" posts than he finds here. He finds however some succour in an article of Dealer Dave Welsh which says nasty things about me too.

He says "I decided to share his blog here because it's important we understand people like Mr. Barford whose only goal in life is to paint us as pot robbers". The "us" that concerns him are metal detectorists [whether only US ones, or anyone going out with a metal detector to search for archaeological finds wherever they do it, is unclear to me].

1) I would say it would be pretty difficult to arrive at any kind of (objective) "understanding" of what I write here while starting from the position that everything Barford says about artefact hunting must be "that next attempt at spreading lies" (especially when admitting that the basis of what I say about artefact hunters generally draws on and refers to genuine examples of what they do and say amongst themselves).

It seems that Mr Stout would like to believe I know nothing about - for example - metal detecting and metal detectorists, ignoring the fact that I have spent a lot of time following their activities since the 1970s, have gone to club meetings, been out detecting with them, collaborated with them on at least two archaeological projects, written about the use of metal detected data and not least spent a lot of time on detecting forums observing the chit chat and social norms.

This is not to mention making several hundred posts out in the open here, any one of which can be challenged and demolished should anybody disagree profoundly with what I write. Many metal detectorists (most memorably Norman and Linda Kennedy, "Sheddy", Steve Taylor under a series of assumed names, assorted members of Central Searchers and others) have sent comments, but few of them actually address what I wrote, most of them content themselves with making threats or engaging in personal attacks like Mr Stout.

Mr Stout should be aware that I have never claimed to know everything about metal detecting (which is why I keep coming back to learn more), but it is not true to say I am "ignorant" of the subject, just because see it differently than he does.

2) Mr Stout is rather unfortunate in his choice of "evidence" to support his allegations of ignorance and deliberate falsehood. He cites the "Sheddy" You Tube video of the November 2011 Framlingham "Hot Tub Stone-Throwing Rally" which he says was attended by 30 people who "are amoungst (sic) the best detectorists in the country, they know thier (sic) machines and how to use them". Yet, he says he really believes that the video is proof positive that detectorists find much less than "Paul Barford" says they do.

Now, Mr Stout seems unaware that I have in fact already discussed this particular video earlier on this blog. I show there that "Sheddy" (not his real name) is trying to pull the wool over people's eyes trying to claim that what is shown was all the recordable material found, in the body of the video we see people showing off finds that do not appear in the tally at the end for example. I also find it really odd that Stout can accept that here so little is found by detecting, yet on similar sites on similar soils, just across the river Stout's pal Chicago Ron finds oodles of stuff, year after year on his detecting holidays in Essex. So which metal detectorists are telling untruths, the "there is nothing to be found in East Anglia's fields" brigade, or the "come to England and find lots of stuff in Essex and East Anglia's fields" brigade detecting just down the A12?

Mr Stout seems not to see the significance of the comment in this video that "all finds have been recorded but will not be released to the PAS for 5 years at the landowners request". Well, if they have not been reported to the PAS, by any definition of "responsible artefact hunting", they are not responsibly recorded. It really makes not a bit of difference how many finds detectorists are or are not "finding", what matters in the assessment of the damage done (or "social usefulness" if you like) of the hobby is what proportion are reported to the PAS. "None at all yet" is hardly a laudable result - no matter how "few" finds EFID detectorists claim are involved. As I have said before, paying a little attention not only to "detectorists rights" but also to "detectorists responsibilities" would not go amiss.

3) Stout crowns his efforts by informing his State-side readers who this "Heritage Action" is. He reckons it is "a website run by a close associate of Mr. Barford, Nigel Swift". Mr Swift is currently Chairman of Heritage Action, which if Mr Stout knew more about what he was attacking, he'd know is more than just a "website". He refers his readers to one of the threads on their blog (which Mr Stout calls a forum - the story of the involvement of metal detectorists in closing down Heritage Action's real forum is one Mr Stout should know). He says that the exchange of views in the comments, to one of the posts (about Treasure rewards) shows that Mr Swift and I are "birds of a feather". Well, first of all I made no comments to that post (but for the record I agree with Heritage Action), but I invite readers to take note of the way the metal detectorists taking part in that discussion comport themselves after HA made what any of us would consider a quite valid point.

4) I'd like also to draw attention to what Mr Stout sets out to do on his blog. I cannot work out how to give a direct link (it seems to be impossible on his blog), but he announces it under February 1st 2012 in the "Latest News" section. He announces a new feature, called "Who We Are". The aim of this is:

if you or your club are having to fight city hall, be it local or on the state level, you will be able to find data here to help in your efforts. I will search through all my postings, and list data I have received concerning the good we have done and continue to do. Things like rebuttal letters, emails, newspaper articles, and correspondence from those that I am in contact with. Basically anything that promotes that area of our pastime that our opponents tend to overlook, forget or ignore. We are a proud group, and we need to let others know.

He sees nothing wrong with a one-sided presentation of the hobby if it is a positive one, but accuses those who point out the negative side of artefact hunting in its current form of "lies" and "distortions". This is typical tekkie-talk of course. They never really succeed in extending the discussion further than a few glib unsupportable assertions after the accusation, and leave the discussion the moment you try to evaluate what they have just said.

5) My feeling is that artefact hunters have it pretty good, especially in the UK. Archaeologists in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland in general are very understanding, pat metal detectorists on the head, fall down as suppliants before them, begging them to show the next batch of goodies, ooo-ing and ah-ing appropriately in front of the media cameras. Archaeologists call artefact hunters their "partners". The media are fed a plethora of good-news stories full of dumbed-down archaeo-pap (which they swallow uncritically). Metal detectorists have clubs (not illegal) go on commercially organized rallies and 'detecting holidays' (not illegal), have magazines and forums, websites galore. All presenting the "it's all right" picture of artefact hunting and collecting. So-called nighthawks roam the countryside at will, nobody stops them. The British government says it "will do something" about the illicit trade (of which London is one of the biggest hotbeds in the world), but everyone knows they will not. To their eternal shame, Washington is doing MORE in this area than Whitehall (and that is simply pathetic when we consider the actual extent of what the US government is actually doing). And  Mr Stout has his "who we are" propaganda, carefully missing out the bits he wants to carefully miss our in presenting his picture purporting to be "how it really is".

So the reader might well reflect on why there is any angst at all from these folk about the fact that there is one blog which attempts to present in a more holistic form and defend a picture of artefact hunting and collecting and the antiquities trade different from the picture that artefact hunters, collectors and dealers are trying to present to the general (non-collecting) public - the real stakeholders. What is their problem?

And if they have a problem, then what is their difficulty in addressing what is written instead of simply trying to attack the writer?

Vignette: Bitter man

Panic in the Ranks - They Should Read my Blog....

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Coineys are in general slow thinkers, it takes them ages to churn over some ideas, which is why the dealers can lead them by the nose so easily. The latter have just woken up to the EU public consultation on "Council Directive 93/7/EEC on the return of cultural objects unlawfully removed from the territory of a Member State" reported here last year. It seems their Cultural Property Observer has not been all that "observant" after all. So it is that "Coin Weekly" has issued an emergency "special edition" getting the news out to all those poorly-informed US coineys who thought there were "no restrictions on the movement of cultural property in the EU" - to inform them that there are (otherwise how can items be "unlawfully removed" from them?), and the conditions under which the problem is dealt with might be about to change. The title is incomprehensible ("Public consultation – privately") no less so than the text, obviously written in haste [actually it is a translation of the Münzenwoche.de article "Öffentliche Konsultation im Geheimen"]

March 5, 2012 – The European Union is conducting a public consultation largely unknown whether the directives on the return of cultural property need restrictions. Please join absolutely in this consultation today. Even the associations concerned came to know of this consultation only on Friday March 2, 2012. Hence we are all under pressure of time. Please join absolutely in this consultation today. The deadline expires today, March 5, 2012.

Garble-garble-coineyspeak. It looks like a computer translation. At least this shows there is not much difference between the worst of German coineyism and the worst of USA coineyism:

Sollte die Europäische Union ihrer Meinung nach den EU-Ländern helfen, ihre Kulturgüter zu schützen? – Was für eine doppeldeutige Frage! Effektiver Schutz vor Ort wäre nötig, aber in die inneren Verhältnisse der Länder mischt sich die EU selbstverständlich nicht ein. Oder hätten Sie von einem Hilfsangebot gehört, das Italien zeigt, wie man den Einsturz von wertvoller Gebäudesubstanz verhindert, oder Griechenland die finanziellen Mittel gibt, seine Museen und Grabungsstätten zu bewachen? Die Frage dreht sich nur um eine verschärfte Gesetzgebung auf Kosten von Sammlern und Händlern. Und dann das Herkunftszertifikat, das es nicht gibt! Allein diese Frage zeigt, aus welcher Richtung der Fragebogen kommt.
[...] Und hier die zweite doppeldeutige Frage: eine Gesetzgebung, die der Willkür für Beschlagnahmungen Tür und Tor öffnet, ist schlecht. Doch bis jetzt haben die Gerichte anhand eben dieser Gesetzgebung noch immer die Beweislast dem Ankläger aufgebürdet. Deshalb sind diese Gesetze „insgesamt geeignet“. Kein Sammler, kein Händler, kein Museum kann eine verschärfte Gesetzgebung wünschen, die dem Besitzer der Münze die Beweislast aufbürdet, dass seine Münze aus einer alten Sammlung stammt. [...] Sie haben nur noch heute Zeit, ihre Meinung bei dieser Umfrage zum Ausdruck zu bringen. Nutzen Sie diese Möglichkeit!

Well, fine, but perhaps they should familiarise themselves with the subject of the directive "Council Directive 93/7/EEC on the return of cultural objects unlawfully removed from the territory of a Member State". How many collectors will that affect? How many of them willingly collect items unlawfully removed from the territory of an EU state and will go on paper defending their "rights" to do so? Nutzen Sie diese Möglichkeit!

And by now all those US collectors rushing to defend their "rights" before the deadline to collect unlawfully exported material from EU countries will have found that the consultation is only available to EU citizens, not looter/smuggler/culture criminal-financers from outside the EU.

It seems to me that for a fuller picture coineys really do need to read my blog rather than sticking to the misleading one-sided pap coin dealers offer them on the coiney forums and blogs. Nutzen Sie diese Möglichkeit!

Numismatics and the Philosophy of Science: History is Bunk?

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Optical physicist Dane Welsh over in the USA is an aficionado of dugup coins and has recently written an opinion piece ('Archaeologists and their pretensions') trashing historical study. "History is Bunk" he says , echoing the opinion of another US industrialist. He argues that the world should "cease extending automatic acceptance of and respect to archaeologists as scientists". This is because: "archaeologists are not, by any defensible definition of that term, scientists. They are instead purveyors of unproven and in too many cases, illogically formulated opinions". Welsh's definition of a "science" is:

"That which is not measurable or rigorously provable according to the laws of mathematics logic and experimental verification is not science". [...] No reasonable construction as to what constitutes a science, however, can possibly be stretched so far as to include archaeology. I view the intellectually loose, disorganized, illogical, ideologically driven approach of "mainstream" doctrinaire archaeologists toward what might charitably be described as their "discipline" as contemptible according to a Rutherfordian perspective. Archaeology is in reality a very imperfectly organized body of thought, a loose collection of the opinions of thinkers and investigators united to a very elastic degree by unverified and inherently unverifiable doctrines of experimental procedure and theory, which may best be viewed as possibly constituting a science in the making -- as astrology eventually gave rise to astronomy, and alchemy to chemistry. In this observer's opinion, archaeology still has a long way to go. [...] Looking at the many difficulties and actual injustices the anticollecting perspective of mainstream archaeology has caused to those who do not subscribe to their ideology, it is difficult to justify automatically extending the respect one instinctively accords to a scientist, to those who identify themselves as archaeologists. What basis is there within the accepted definition of a science for that? Should we not instead first require definitive affirmative proof that archaeology really does deserve to be considered a science?

I think the trouble with Welsh's whole argument is that it seems the latest book on archaeology he must have read would have been of 1962 vintage. This is about the time that some young idealistic technology-enthused archaeologists over in the US tried to convince themselves (and research funding committees) that by investigating the past they were doing "science". The rest of us see the historical sciences as part of the humanities.

One of the characteristics of any academic discipline however is an explicit methodology. So to return to Welsh's arguments, we might ask to what degree his "numismatics" is "measurable and rigorously provable according to the laws of mathematical logic and experimental verification". While one may weigh coins and establish their alloy composition by physical methods, die analyses on the other hand are a subjective process of comparing one picture with another and saying to what degree they are the same or not. Hooker's analyses of Armorican coinage involves a number of implicit evolutionary assumptions which remain untested. The assumption that hammered coins which say quite explicitly Henricius or Stefen were issued by other rulers is an unproven assumption. And where is the formulation of the methodology of the sort of heap of coins on a table numismatics practiced by Welsh and his ACCG mates? They have not been able to name a single textbook outlining the methodology of the manner in which they treat the evidence of coins to write history and then verify the results. Why not?

Welsh suggests that archaeologists utter "much nonsense":

among which is the unproven, unjustified concept that looting of archaeological sites is caused by collecting. No verifiable data supporting that assertion in a manner consistent with fact and logic has ever been published nor will it ever be published, since this dogma is factually and logically indefensible.

Of course if that is to be regarded as a false hypothesis, the opposite of this is the "unproven, unjustified concept" that looting of archaeological sites is NOT caused by collecting.

This model would presuppose that looters spend time searching acres of fields with metal detectors, or digging deep holes in tells, often in the hot sun, in the search for artefacts that they do not intend collecting or selling to antiquity-dealing middlemen.

The dealers lobbyists claim they do this to find small scraps of corroded non-ferrous metal for sale as scrap. I have suggested that they might like to verify the validity of this model by demonstrating that it is possible, nobody yet has taken up the challenge. But in lieu of experimental data we have observations of real scrap metal collectors at work, they steal cables and pipes, and electrical fittings, statuary, memorial plaques. I have never met a report of metal detector wielding scrap metal seekers raiding an Iron Age hillfort or Roman villa purely FOR the scrap metal (as opposed to selling the surplus scrap after they have removed for themselves or sale of the collectable items). We have observations of tomb-robbers in various parts of the world which show that in remote locations, the diggers leave behind that which has lesser market value, and take that which is more readily saleable. Mr Welsh might like to ask on a UK artefact hunter's forum, "why do you do this?" and will hear that these people are looking for things to collect because they are interested in history, not for the money they can get for melting down old coins and ornaments. This observation of real people in the real world doing real damage seems to me to be adequate partial validation of the "collectable-seeking" as opposed to the dealers' "scrap-metal seeking" models.

I think it is true that "no verifiable data supporting in a manner consistent with fact and logic" the assertion that looting of archaeological sites is NOT caused by collecting has ever been published by the dealers' lobbyists nor will it ever be published, since it is quite clear that such an assertion is factually and logically indefensible.

Basically in order to uphold it, one would have to propose a mechanism by which the objects that are being dug up on ancient sites are somehow disappearing without reaching the antiquities market. We would also have to accept a parallel mechanism by which large quantities of previously unrecorded artefacts are appearing on the antiquities market which are not identical with the items being dug up. In other words, that the activities surrounding looting, and the activities surrounding the commerce in freshly-surfaced artefacts are two completely separate and closed systems. Is there any evidence that this is the case? Are there any verifiable data supporting that assertion in a manner consistent with fact and logic which has ever been published, or will we have to accept that since nobody has provided evidence that they are two separate and closed sysetms that the notion that there are is "factually and logically indefensible"?

The only way around the dilemma is to accept supernatural forces are at work. It seems many coin collectors and dealers believe that looters and metal detectorists are relieved of the items taken out of the ground by coin (antiquity) fairies. Rather like tooth fairies we believed in as kids. Since the looted artefacts all end up in Coinfairyland, the antiquities market therefore would have to be supplied by magical elves who make all these old things (like Santa's Elves make the presents). Thus it is that the two systems are separate:

LOOTERS in COIN FAIRYLAND and
COIN ELVENLAND supplies the AUTONOMOUS MARKET.

Anyone who suggests otherwise, Welsh suggests, "might best be described as charlatans". Personally I would like to see a bit more evidence than the coin dealers have provided so far for the existence of coin fairies and coin elves, or any other actual, factual, evidence that their model of two closed systems has any validity.

And if it does, where do SMUGGLERS come into their picture?
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English Heritage: "Jolly Good Thing this metal detecting"

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Bob Preece, Yorkshire Post's Crime Correspondent, notes that Yorkshire’s heritage is being ruined by "opportunist metal thieves" and shameless graffiti vandals: "They are ruining historic sites for everybody and depriving historians of the chance to learn more about the region’s past". British police, despite costly special training to investigate heritage crime, cannot cope and call on volunteers to help them monitor monuments for signs of damage and graffiti. With the aim of raising such vigilantes, a conference was held in York over the weekend hosted by English Heritage, together with the city’s council and archaeological trust.

Of note was what was said about artefact hunting, generally regarded as culture-theft and destructive in most countries across the civilized world. Not so in Britain, there are two types of archaeological erosion there it seems:

English Heritage expert Pete Wilson said “nighthawks” had long been suspected of destroying valuable archaeological evidence at Iron Age sites in the Yorkshire Wolds. Sites near the old Roman road Dere Street, running through the Vales of York and Mowbray, are also thought to have been targeted. “There are stories of sites of archaeological interest being targeted to order,” Dr Wilson said. “There are signs of a network of metal detectorists being commissioned to go to Iron Age sites that might have swords or armour. “The challenge is that, even if you can catch somebody and get them arrested, then get them convicted, the site is still there and potentially vulnerable to other people doing the same. “It is impossible to say how many nighthawks there are and it is an unfortunate term because some do their looting during the day".

duh. So, Mr Wilson, you admit you have criminals with metal detectors digging stuff up to sell to collectors. One approach is to recruit Yorkshire housewives to peer out from behind their lacy curtains to see if there are any suspicious vehicles in the vicinity of the local Iron Age barrow cemetery or hillfort and rush out waving their rolling pins at anyone who gets a metal detector and spade out of the boot of their car there. Another approach, surely, is to deal with the market in the British Isles for illicitly-obtained artefacts, isn't it? Where's the problem in that? Well, Mr Wilson it seems would have a problem with that, you see he thinks (and has told everybody):

“There might be 10,000 responsible, legal detectorists and we might only be talking about a couple of hundred nighthawks, but they can have a devastating effect. “Meanwhile responsible detectorists have contributed so much. There have been something like 26 PhD and Masters papers written, based on material that has been found by detectorists.”

I'll come back to that ACCG-like notion of looters "contributing so much" to knowledge by depleting the archaeological record. Let's look at the numbers he gives first .

This guy works for English Heritage a cash-gobbling state-funded heritage organization, supposedly in charge of it all. If anyone should know the scale of the threat to the English Heritage from this source, it should be - surely it is logical to assume - the blokes in English Heritage. But what does English Heritage Bloke Peter Wilson "know" after fourteen years of PAS outreach for fourteen million quid? There "might be" this, and "we might be talking" that. What he's saying is that after all this time and all this liaison, he really does not know anything about the scale of the problem. That is just one whopping big English heritage scandal. (By the way, the "ten thousand' was a number I was promoting several years back, it referred to the whole UK, not PASland, England and Wales.)

Well, according to the PAS database in the past year " Quantities of objects and records found Date from: 2011-02-27 Date to: 2012-02-27" we get Total records: 51675 (Total objects recorded: 73061). So basically 8000 detectorists would have found 244000 recordable artefacts according to the Heritage Action algorithm, but only 52000 of those finds generated a PAS record last year. That is each English and Welsh detectorist found and reported only 7.3 recordable items a year? The internet is full of videos of individual detectorists emptying out their finds pouches in the course of pulling out the collectables from the ground in the field that have found that many artefacts in (less than) a single day's detecting. Also have a look at some of the figures for self-recorders for that year.

A figure of 59000 items juxtaposed with the HA algorithm shows that this is the equivalent of 1934 of Wilson's "ten thousand" (sic) being responsible and reporting to the PAS all of what recordable items they've found, rather than the odd rally find and thing taken to a club meeting. That's about twenty percent, isn't it Mr Wilson? So EIGHTY PERCENT of the detecting in the region English heritage is concerned with is done irresponsibly, ie totally clandestinely with no record being generated.

Mr Wilson and his English Heritage mates really seem not to be in much of a position to challenge the Heritage Action algorithm if the best they can come up with is that there "might be" this, and "we might be talking" that. Pathetic.

Bob Preece, 'Monumental cost to heritage as thieves and graffiti youths strike', Yorkshire Post, 25th February 2012.

Those "eight percent"

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According to a recent article in a numismatic publication about the US Implementation Act to the Convention on Cultural Property:

The archaeologists who favor a full ban on the import of such coins is a minority, according to Sayles. He noted that at a recent hearing only eight percent of archaeologists favored coins being named among future import restriction laws now being considered by the U.S. State Department.

Wayne Sayles is cited as a source. This statement is either an invention of Mr Giedroyć or the person he quotes as its source. The only information I can find in Sayles-related sources is the post by Peter Tompa on his lobbyist's blog "Cultural Property Obscurant" which (post: '77% of Posted Comments Against Renewal of Cypriot MOU', Jan. 4th, 2012 ) gives the details of John Hooker's analysis of the 338 comments posted on the regulations.gov website in response to the proposed renewal of the MOU with Cyprus.

Those for the renewal that mentioned coins: 8%

See my discussion of the way this figure was produced. It can be seen ("only eight percent of archaeologists") that either Sayles or Giedroyć are engaged in crude manipulation of the statistics desperate to make it appear that they have more support than they do in fact have for the trade in coins without documentation of lawful export. Krause Publications is spreading misinformation here, I doubt we will see from them any kind of correction.

For more of this ilk from desperate coineys: 'Americans Again Reject Import Restrictions'

Gleick and the Coiney Heartland

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Over on Moneta-L, Reid Goldsborough has seen through the ACCG ploy of diverting attention from the problems inherent in no-questions-asked trade in dugup coins:

The entire line of your thought is pitting archeology against numismatics so as to blame -- I'd use the word scapegoat -- archeology for numismatics' current political problems.

This ACCG attack on archaeology, archaeologists and what they do is rather reminiscent of the situation concerning the current anti-scientific campaign of the so-called "Heartland Institute" in the United States. Last week confidential documents were leaked (by Peter Gleick, a water scientist) detailing its plans to discredit the teaching of science to school children.

Gleick apologised on Monday for using a false name to obtain materials from Heartland, a Chicago-based think tank with a core mission of dismissing climate change. "My judgment was blinded by my frustration with the ongoing efforts – often anonymous, well-funded and co-ordinated – to attack climate science," Gleick wrote in a piece for Huffington Post. The admission – nearly a week after Heartland's financial plans and donors' list was put online – looked set to further inflame the climate wars, in which a network of fossil fuel interests, rightwing think tanks and politicians have been working to block action on climate change.

Gleick claims that he received one of the documents anonymously and attempted to obtain other documents to determine their authenticity and whether the first really did represent the think tank's climate strategy.

"At the beginning of 2012, I received an anonymous document in the mail describing what appeared to be details of the Heartland Institute's climate programme strategy. It contained information about their funders and the Institute's apparent efforts to muddy public understanding about climate science and policy. [...]" Gleick's admission was seen by some as crossing a new line in the increasingly vitriolic debate between scientists, campaigners, businesses and politicians who want action on climate change and a small but well-funded group of those who deny the existence of man-made climate change.

Sadly, the deniers seem to be succeeding in distracting attention away from the information obtained to the manner in which Gleick, a well regarded water scientist, had used to obtain them.

[Some commentators] suggested that Heartland had got what it deserved – given its support for efforts to discredit science. "Heartland has been subverting well-understood science for years," wrote Scott Mandia, co-founder of the climate science rapid response team. "They also subvert the education of our school children by trying to 'teach the controversy' where none exists." He went on: "Peter Gleick, a scientist who is also a journalist just used the same tricks that any investigative reporter uses to uncover the truth. He is the hero and Heartland remains the villain. He will have many people lining up to support him."

[...] Those actions may have undercut an entire career, the journalist Andrew Revkin wrote. "Gleick's use of deception in pursuit of his cause after years of calling out climate deception has destroyed his credibility and harmed others," he wrote. "The broader tragedy is that his decision to go to such extremes in his fight with Heartland has greatly set back any prospects of the country having the "rational public debate" that he wrote — correctly — is so desperately needed."

Kert Davies, the research director of Greenpeace USA, said it would be unfortunate if the row over Gleick and his methods to obtain the documents distracted from Heartland's work to block climate action. "There are a lot of people involved with Heartland's multimillion dollar climate denial machine who want to change the subject to anything else."

All of this so reminiscent of the position we find ourselves in debating the no-questions-asked antiquity trade with US collectors, dealers and lobbyists working for trade associations. They are a small but, since the antiquities trade in the US alone is worth millions, a well-funded group of those who deny the existence of the erosive effects of no-questions-asked acquisition of artefacts on http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifthe world's archaeological record. A network of antiquities trade interests, rightwing groups and politicians have been working to block US and global action on the illicit antiquities trade, and part of it is the attempt by certain fraction of them to discredit archaeology. Like anthropogenic climate change in the US, it seems there is no prospect of any kind of proper public debate with these people, and in my opinion, it's not even worth trying. These people too one day will expose themselves for what they are and what they represent.

Source: Suzanne Goldenberg, 'Climate scientist Peter Gleick admits he leaked Heartland Institute documents', Guardian, 21 February 2012

Ignorance is Like a Flower in Coineyland

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Mr "I-Know-More-About-Archaeology-than-the-Archaeologists" Hooker is pleased to have attracted some attention by his rambling name-dropping anti-preservationist waffle. He now refers on Moneta-L to my comments on his recent post there about the intellectual flaws of archaeobloggers. Like a fresh-faced sibilant schoolboy he finds much to giggle about in my response:

Hi all, For a little light humor: http://paul-barford.blogspot.com/2012/02/coiney-total-nonsense.html I am reminded of one of those children's puzzles: "can you spot the mistakes in this picture". It is also full of all sorts of academese illiteracy. Please, though -- don't give away the answers. Ignorance is like a delicate flower: touch it and the bloom is lost. It serves us well. Cheers, John

No, don't try to give away the answers, we might ask Mr Hooker himself to point these "mistakes" out, then he'd be really floundering. Still Hooker has a point, their ignorance does indeed serve the ACCG/Moneta-L coiney community well; without hiding behind it, they'd have some serious thinking to do.

Vignette: ignorance, the flower that flourishes particularly well on Coiney soil

Coiney Total Nonsense

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ACCG ideologist John Hooker, addressing thinking numismatist Reid Goldsborough, attempts to explain archaeology to him based on his correspondence with some people on internet forums and gleanings from Wikipedia. Hooker attempts to show why archaeology and coin collecting are "different subjects with different emphases":

Contextual archaeology focuses on incidents of abandonment -- a site frozen in various times as determined from the strata (including cuts into that strata as is shown using the Harris Matrix). Numismatics deals more with incidents of creation -- blanks, and the creation and use of dies -- weight standards, alloys etc. Perhaps, if you read more qualified archaeologists than Paul Barford you would not make such silly mistakes.[...] many current "field archaeologists" confuse archaeology with the specific theory of contextual archaeology, as does Barford, but they are not very hot on theory. [...] I think [Barford] made it as far as assistant lecturer (the one who arranges the chairs and sets up the overheads? I don't know.)

Apparently in Canada, archaeology students are not expected to be able to find their own place to sit. In my classes they were able to work that out for themselves, the good ones sat at the front, the time-wasters at the back.

The reader can think what they want, but I personally find Hooker's attempt to explain that in reality Barford knows nothing about archaeology somewhat puzzling in the circumstances. Hooker apparently does not understand what Hodder and other post-processualists considered as "Contextual Archaeology"; he accuses others as "not very hot on theory" (unlike Hooker, I taught it at university) but he himself only cites Wikipedia.

As for site formation processes (the name should give a clue), archaeological stratification, like geological stratification (not caused by the "abandonment of the earth", after all), is created by a range of processes. Despite what Hooker affirms, these include deliberate creation (roads and streets, ramparts, graves, walls, postholes for example) not just "abandonment". Perhaps coin collectors like to think they are examining just "creation" (of beautiful tactile objects) but of course circulation (and for example the damage - wear - done to coins in the process) and deposition are studied by REAL numismatists. There is a whole body of numismatic theory about that which I've never seen an ACCG coiney refer to - and it is difficult to escape the conclusion that most of them apparently just heap loose coins on a table and look at the pictures on them and try to put them in some sort of order on that basis (Mr Hooker's book on the Gaulish coin hoards for example). I have asked the ACCG coineys many times to point us to the textbook of the methodology of heap-of-coins-on-a-table "numismatics", but have never met one who could impart even such basic information about this side of the coin-collecting 'discipline' as the title of even a single work in the genre.

If by "contextual archaeology" (of the "field archaeologists"), Hooker means stratigraphy, it is not a "theory" but a methodology.

Archaeology is a proper discipline and as such has an explicit methodology (or may even have several), so where is the methodology of heap-of-coins-on-a-table "numismatics" explicitly formulated and taught? What about a theory of the same brand of touchy-feely numismatics? There is no end to the number of books, even if we restrict the search to those written in English, on the methodology and theory or archaeology, written from a wide diversity of methodological, theoretical and ideological positions. There is therefore no excuse whatsoever for the enquiring coiney (or dugup antiquity collector) not to know what archaeology is about. Let them follow the lead and produce the textbooks allowing us to understand what we have been asking for years about just what it is they imagine they are doing with all those accumulations of dugup ancient coins.

So far, the sum total of the coiney 'critique' of archaeology looks no different than that of Erich Von Daniken (who also took a great interest in contextless archaeological artefacts, on the basis of which he wove his own story about the past).

Vignette: Pirates' idea of debate

Not About "Repatriations"

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American collectors and dealers' lobbyists don't seem to get it. Thick as planks the lot of them. They are constantly banging on about how the US "should not repatriate" stolen artefacts to countries like Greece (their current bête noire) when the 'natives' "cannot look after them" (for example totally prevent them being stolen by armed raiders). Typical of the sort of comment is this one from Bailey and Ehrenbergs' Peter Tompa:

'Greece in Meltdown; Archaeologists in Denial' [...] The Greek financial meltdown has led to further cuts in Greece's already poorly funded cultural establishment [...] Yet, it's business as usual in the archaeological blogosphere. Bash the collectors and museums. Call for more repatriations.

Let us be clear that what the United States (which quite clearly is all that concerns Welthaupstadt-Washington-based Tompa here) is "repatriating" are objects which are seized under US law because they are illicit (in the eyes of US law). Recovered stolen property, artefacts detected in the process of being smuggled into the country and suchlike.

The 1970 UNESCO Convention, the implementation of which US dealers in certain types of dugup artefacts are kicking, is called the Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property. The word "repatriation" does not occur in the title (nor, indeed the body of the text of the Convention's 26 articles). The series of administrative processes to which dealers' lobbyists like Tompa and Welsh so strongly and vociferously object are intended - as it says on the box - to combat the ILLICIT trade in antiquities.

So yes, let us bash collectors who do not do anything much to avoid buying illicit antiquities, whose carefree self-centred behaviour allows the illicit trade to flourish. Let us bash museums that do the same. Why should we not?

So, instead of merely "repatriation" of the proceeds, I'd like to see the US doing more to haul those with illicit antiquities in their possession, or found to have been dealing in them up in front of a judge, have their perp-walk photos in an orange jumpsuit in all the papers. Let's have their names. Let culture crime be treated as what it is, a crime against 'humanity', stealing from all of us. Let those found to be involved be sent somewhere where the US authorities by the various subtle or not so subtle (legal we are assured) means at their disposal do their best to find out the names of their accomplices. Let them too then face justice. This is not just about Good Ol' Uncle Sam giving back the proceeds of a crime to some of its victims with a patronising smile and the obligatory scripted cultural pep-talk speechette. Let Tompa and Welsh and all the rest of the ACCG and their hangers on realise this is about fighting a crime. One which, if they tell the truth about their own beliefs, motivations and mores, one would have thought they'd care a lot more about seeing prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

But no, for them it seems it is all about stolen artefacts being taken away from the US market where they cannot get them and going back abroad. Who is the real Black Beast here? Who here is "in denial"?

Vignette: Collectors' bete noire (drawing copyright Pierrick Martinez)

EBay, Lueke and the Coin Elves (Part 1)

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It seems the coineys have it in for Professor Nathan Elkins, an academic numismatist who sides with the Preservationist White Hat guys rather than with the no-questions-asked antiquities buyers and sellers. First to start the mud-slinging was bitter Old Man Sayles, copied by Jorg Lueke on his "A Historical Perspective" ("exploring history and how it is crafted, manipulated, and used by governments, agencies, and others") blog. When however challenged to formulate and back up his views more precisely, he now claims that what he wrote was "satire". Lueke now follows up his ("satirische") Schlammschlachten, ja, ja with an exposition ("Archaeologist finds all the "evidence" he needs on Ebay") about why what we can see on eBay in fact does not show what it seems to show. Once again this is focussed on the person of "Dr. Nathan T Elkins an Assistant Professor of Art History at Baylor":

In a recent appearance focusing on the cultural property of Bulgaria Dr. Elkins displays a fondness for using Ebay as a source for his arguments. This comes as no surprise as Dr. Elkins used Ebay as a research tool when he wrote his article “Why Coins Matter”. This fondness for superficial results from Ebay opens up several interesting questions that I shall examine.

Having said that of course, the coiney does not. Now, Nathan Elkins has been looking into the US trade on ancient coins for a number of years, and from what I know of that research (which I venture to suggest is considerably more than what Jorg Lueke knows about his research) I would not say that his conclusions are based on "superficial results from Ebay". That is the first straw man argument offered by coiney Lueke.

Coiney Lueke indicates that in his opinion on the extremely rare occasions a seller of dugup ancient coins gives the information from which country they came, it would be "a rather naïve belief [...] that eBay sellers are in all cases telling the truth and not simply marketing what they think will work". In other words' Lueke has no problem accepting that collectors of ancient coins in the US and elsewhere are being lied to by the dealers selling them. Given an awareness of that level of deceit, in what way could that person then turn round and say this is a "legitimate market"? Why would somebody lie about coins coming "from Bulgaria", instead of admitting they come from which country?

Mr Lueke suggests that the number of coins actually being sold by eBay is less than the number presented by Nathan Elkins (nota bene NOT in his comments on the Bulgaria MOU but in several articles on the more general issues connected with the US trade in dugup coins). Lueke suggests we should note how many coins are SOLD rather than the number offered from sale. Presumably he considers that the ones not sold any given week are the ones that fell off trees or were produced by the coin elves and did not come out of the ground, so they are irrelevant to the question about the damage caused by the no-questions-asked market masking looting. But it is not just eBay is it? Let us then note that in parallel venues are also relatively high numbers of coins offered for sale. Just one example is the ACCG's old fried: V-coins (today: "160 Ancient Dealers, 98,940 Items, $22,743,591" - all produced by the coin Elves no doubt).

As it happens, today there are 26,725 results to be found in the category "Coins ancient" on eBay.com. If we narrow that down to those located only in the US, the result is "16,359 results" - so today 61% of the global trade in such items is being done out of the USA (a country whose soil does not as a rule produce ancient coins). Lueke himself notes that when he looks for coins produced in the Roman mint Serdica (mainly supplied the Balkan region and limes, but these coins also reached Britannia) "most of those are already in the US".

The figures for eBay sales of such items today are far higher than the number "5000 a week" mentioned by Elkins and now criticised by Lueke. Yes, it is true that not all those coins are sold from week to week, while some with "buy it now" prices will have gone well before we open the page to look. The feedback for many sellers shows the number of items week after week, month after month. This is (part of ) the turnover of the market, obviously many more items need to be added to the market every week and month to produce the stock from which clients with different needs and financial abilities select what they fancy. Many US dealers have stock which extends far beyond what they put on sale on the Internet any given day, week or month.

What one can see happening on the Internet is not just an array of (superficial) "figures" used to "support" any arguments. This is information anyone can see for themselves when they open the eBay page (or any other dealer's list, or "uncleaned bulk lots of coins" sales sites and discussion lists, of which there are many). However you spin those numbers, they do not reflect too well on the trade when you see how many of them are offered with any sort of information where they came from or any sort of expressly-worded guarantee offered by the seller that he only offers coins where there is due diligence done to ascertain that these are not freshly surfaced coins from recent looting and smuggling, but material he can demonstrate to the buyer has a documented history of licit acquisition and legal export (and legal import into the US).

Looking at the sorry array of sales offers giving no such guarantees (let alone offering potential customers any information about the documentation of legal collecting history and export) and comparing that with what (in the situation this market finds itself in) a truly legitimate market in such material should look like in the second decade of the twenty-first century can readily lead the onlooker to certain conclusions.

Lueke says:

In my view there is no rationale for believing the figures hastily printed off of (sic) eBay and woven (sic) around in front of some bureaucratic committee [i.e., CPAC PMB]. Even if true the story this volume of coins would (sic) tell about a marketplace, one that doesn’t exist in reality, would be contradictory at best [...] all these numbers are make believe and created just to serve a pre-defined purpose: to make it harder to collect coins [...] these numbers are hogwash and I will shortly present a more rational analysis of the current market.

It is unclear why Lueke says there is no "marketplace" for ancient coins when he himself makes use of it to add to his own collection. Anyway, we await with bated breath his promised analysis of the figures to show that the Coin Elves do not really put all that many undocumented ancient coins on the US market.

PAS and the "Shafting" of the Archaeologists

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Unable to answer the question about his views on disturbing battlefield archaeology by metal detecting, and the difference between artefact hunting and artefact hunting, US artefact hunter Dick Stout has decided to rely on his "bosom buddy from across the pond" (John Howland) to answer for him: "Note there will be nothing further to post on this subject. I hate wasting time, pissing in the wind, and talking with idiots". Well, I hope those following the debate about artefact hunting with metal detectors in the US note that Howland's ad personam "answer" does not really do much to address the concerns I raised either.

A little below that text Stout's protégé Howland also committed this text to print:

The word coming from inside academia’s US ivory towers according to one well-placed source is that a minority of radical and/or politically motivated archaeologists and historians have formed themselves into a loose confederation [ha! A Conspiracy! PMB] to monitor ALL aspects of the US media to search out features, programmes, and articles that portray the metal detecting/treasure hunting hobby in a favourable light. [...] Once a favourable piece is found, it’s a case of all hands to the bullshit pump in a concerted ‘highbrow’ hand-wringing propaganda effort with more than a little disinformation thrown in for good measure.

(Very John Hooker, no?) He reckons this is proof that what he calls "the war to outlaw the hobby" "is all but lost".

All of the foregoing is a mirror image of what occurred in the UK over thirty years ago. We in the UK shafted them royally, and now US hobbyists can do the same. You have the individuals well capable of destroying the archaeological propaganda machine and with guys of the calibre of Harold Lowenfels (Task Force for Metal Detecting Rights) and dare I say it, (yes, I will) Dick Stout. I see a great future for the US treasure hobby; collecting; and the buying and selling of legally found antiquities.

That's what it's all about, the legalisation of the buying and selling of dug up bits of history?
Howland reckons the US is currently

 "not far from a US-wide antiquities arrangement modelled on the UK’s brilliantly successful Portable Antiquities Scheme where thousands of artefacts are reported and recorded every week as more and more people flock into our hobby". 

He remarks:

Odd isn’t it, how the radicals are fighting to resist its implementation. Why?

Well, count me out. For wanting to protect the archaeological record from plunder as a mere source of collectables I have oft times been called a "radical" by those who know no better. As can be seen in repeated posts here I am all for discussions aiming to lead to an introduction of a Portable Antiquities Scheme in the USA, but no pale shadow of the UK one, a fully blown, singing-and-dancing PAS every bit as effective at getting as many public-found artefacts recorded a year as in the UK.

So Mr Stout might, instead of moaning about what public parks are closed to artefact digging, or reminiscing about the "good old days" when he had hair, consider concentrating on looking forward and on getting folk behind this idea. Instead of dodging discussion he could be justifying a budget expenditure of, at a conservative estimate, some 60 million dollars a year to set one up and run it. He and his fellows should join forces with another US-based "collectors' rights" organization, the Ancient Coin Collectors' Guild ("Preserving our freedom to collect") which has long advocated the setting up of PAS-clones in other countries, and obviously would be interested in one being set up in the States as a priority in this programme of cultural property leadership.

So the setting up of the PAS in the UK is according to UK detectorist Howland an expression of British archaeology getting - as he put it - "shafted"? Well, thank you Roger Bland! Howland is not the first to point out that instead of the expected instilling of conservation-aware "best practice" across the board as was the original intent of this dotty social experiment, all the PAS is achieving is encouraging more and more people to go out and buy metal detectors and come "flocking to the hobby of artefact hunting, and see nothing wrong with hoiking out anything that takes a collector's fancy - with all that means for the preservation of what is left of the archaeological record.

"Collectors" Guild Keeps US Collectors in the Dark

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The US organization run by some dugup artefact dealers which claims to be a "Guild" of and for "Collectors" of such items seems to be going about looking after US collectors' interests in a very strange way. It is becoming clear from events over the past few weeks that there are currently a number of ongoing changes in the context in which the no-questions-asked collecting of ancient artefacts has so far operated. These must be confusing and difficult times for that collecting milieu. Collectors wanting to know where they stand, and what the future will hold for them and their collections surely should have somewhere to turn for information and advice.

There are as we know a number of US-based coiney blogs and discussion lists, many of them propagating the ACCG point of view. Are collectors finding the information they need to understand the rapidly changing situation on places like Peter Tompa's "Cultural Property Obbserver" blog? Or the "News" section of the ACCG website? or on the Moneta-L discussion list?

Certainly collectors are being enlisted through these and other resources to join the ACCG-led fight against the CCPIA (implementing the 1970 UNESCO Convention) which places import controls on unlawfully exported artefacts and has provisions for the return of stolen artefacts. They have even brought these people into conflict with their own government over this matter, thus exposing them to the danger of being added to a watch-list in future.

But to what extent is the ACCG making the effort to acquaint collectors with the other problems the collector may face if not very careful about the legality of the purchases they make according to US law? I will set out below a few things that collectors will NOT find being discussed on the coiney blogs. The pattern is such that it is very tempting to see this as a deliberate suppression of information. Are collectors being wilfully misled?

A few weeks back I noted that the journalists who run the Chasing Aphrodite blog had drawn attention (Looted Antiquities at American Museums: An On-Going Crime, law professor argues) to an article of Stephen Urice about cultural property and US law which noted a serious problem for the owners of cultural property of less than clean origins: "Between Rocks and hard Places: Unprovenanced Antiquities and the national Stolen Property Act". This was not picked up by coiney bloggers, as I predicted at the time that it would not be, since it undermined the coiney premise that "provenance does not matter". It seems collectors have lost the chance to read the original article which was originally open access and is now subscription-only.

Then there have been developments in the SLAM mummy mask case which suggests some creative use of US legislation by the government (the first to pick this up was 'White Hat' cultural property lawyer Rick St Hilaire, it received very little attention in collecting circles). There have however since been three cases involving interpretations of US law on imports quite separate from the CCPIA which potentially have, I would say, far reaching consequences for those collecting ancient objects brought into America from other countries by less-than-legal means. There were some paintings going to auction, a painting loaned from a museum, and a whole historic warplane that somebody had managed to sneak through not-so-vigilant US Customs. Again, the possible implications of these cases, or rather the interpretation of law on which they are based, have been totally ignored on the coiney blogs. Why?

Dealers try to convince US collectors that current US law (but again, just the CCPIA) "discriminate" against American collectors because allegedly over here in Europe we can fill our homes with looted artefacts and art taken from neighbouring countries. It seems however that the stereotype of collectors over there of the meaning of a Europe without frontiers is maintained only by a refusal on coiney websites to inform collectors of cases which show that this is not the case. Such as the long-running saga in Switzerland about a coin sold there two years ago at auction which was looted from northern Greece. The collector who bought it without proof of legal origins has just lost it, a fact that coiney blogs are not sharing with their audience of collectors who buy stuff from US dealers without proof of legal origins.

Another myth they like to perpetuate is that non-white "Wiley Oriental Gentlemen" are not capable of looking after the cultural heritage of their countries, they are all corrupt and their museums are badly-run and full of thieves. The inference they draw from that is that the laws intended to get freshly-surfaced items into national collections are "bad" laws, and the stuff is "better off" being exported to teh US where private collectors there can look after the artefacts. In order to uphold this viewpoint, each and every case of damage occurring to objects in the museums of the "Wiley Orientals" and especially insider thefts. These are the staples of blogs like Peter Tompa's or Dave Welsh's "Unidroit-L' discussion list. The same "resources" however are totally silent about analogous events when they take place in the museums, archives and public collections of the USA. This is even more noticeable when they affect numismatic collections, such as the recent court case over thefts from the American Numismatic Association Money Museum. The total silence on the coiney blogs is all the more puzzling because there is an appeal for help (and from whom if not the international numismatic community?) to find the missing coins.

Then we have some more missing information on coins, it seems the American Numismatic Society (where our old friend Rick Witschonke is Curatorial Associate) is for some reason at this moment busily censoring the online records of donations from a certain individual, removing the information about where these particular coins came from. It seems to me that coin collectors thinking of donating research material to a US public collection ought to be aware of the fate that may await their own gifts of generosity if they choose the ANS, and this is something that collectors should have to go somewhere else to find out rather than Paul Barford's blog (and look how popular that post is, there seems to be quite a lot of interest in these behind-the-scenes-doings by the ANS). As readers will know, I make the point about the hypocrisy of dealers invoking the "presumption of innocence" in the case of transactions involving freshly-surfaced artefacts, but they do not apply it themselves to acquisitions from certain collectors the moment a grey cloud appears anywhere near their name. We saw this in the case of the ACCG's own treatment of two affiliated dealers (and benefit auction donors) the moment they seemed to be in trouble with the law (the case has not yet come to trial).

Then there is the raid on the New York International Numismatic Convention on 3rd January and the further developments in this case. There seems every reason to believe - including what appear to be a number of 'strategic leaks' - that this is going to be a watershed case. Yet the coiney blogs are silent, forum moderators are keeping discussions under a tight rein and deleting posts before other members see them. It seems to me that for far too long both US dealers and US collectors felt not only that they were above the law, entitled to do what they wanted in the name of their hobby, even to the extent of suing the US government and spreading all sorts of false information about government officials (and others who they saw as their opponents). Obviously if a group is going to accuse the government of illegal acts (which is what the coin dealers have been saying over the application of the CCPIA for years), they had better be 100% sure that they themselves are 100% inside the law. Otherwise they are opening themselves up to precisely the kind of investigation which it seems to me that coin and antiquity collecting are about to face in the USA over the next few months. The fact that it seems to have caught them all by surprise seems to be due to the fact that they as a milieu have been kept woefully poorly-appraised by their (self-appointed) leaders not only of the law itself, but also recent developments that should have been sending out signals that the status quo was not going to last for ever.

Meanwhile, as if to show the irrelevance of the ACCG, despite all that has been going on in and around the coineysphere, the last post on Tompa's blog is an old one about a guy who will not ship Sicilian coins to the USA (see here) and on Dealer Dave's how restrictions on importation of unlawfully exported coins is "destroying the coin market". Both so CCPIA and so old hat...

Vignette: Byron Reed, an early US coin collector (1870s-1890s), time for a change.