Thursday 22 September 2011

Dealer's View on What the PAS is For

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Dugup ancient coin dealer Joe Blazick now complains on a coiney discussion list about a certain heritage blogger:
He is a disruptive force that causes nothing but trouble. I have been the target of this a few years ago when he attacked me on his blog and then had the nerve to have the head of PAS email over my legitimate purchase of less than 100 uncleaned English dugups.
Wow, what a nerve eh?

What I wrote about was a case where somebody was boasting in a commercial offer that they'd got a batch of dugups from an English detectorist which had not been through the PAS system, hardly an "attack" (have a look at the other references to subsequent events on this blog). The problem was the obvious (and symptomatic) feeling of entitlement this dealer exhibited in a documented case of handling objects that were obtained for sale "outside the system". What is the CAUSE of the trouble? Somebody hoping to get away with some dodgy dealing practice involving archaeological artefacts or somebody drawing attention to it in an effort to show this kind of thing needs to stop?

I think this is the real source of the problem coineys have with what I write elsewhere, that they are on the side of the dodgy dealer practices which they presumabbly see as the only way that new coins will come onto the market they are so interested in patronising. It is symptomatic that not a single Unidroit-er came back with a reflective "but Joe...".

Here's a question. The answer might be revealing:

What do US collectors think the actual function of the PAS is? To facilitate collecting, or to regulate the manner in which artefacts enter collections?
What do the PAS tell US collectors their function is?
neither is it at all a "nerve" to expect the head of that organization to actually do what he and his organization are there, being paid (a lot of public money), to do.

It is not "disruptive" to point out that in the case of coins from the UK, this is not what should be happening when we have a PAS in position thirteen years which has cost the taxpayer thirteen million pounds to PREVENT this from happening and all dugup coin collectors and dealers say that it's wonderful. Obviously only as long as it stays out of THEIR business.

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