The Chasing Aphrodite bloggers have a piece on Mr Tompa ("he clearly relishes his role as a bête noire to archaeologists and foreign governments that are alarmed by the link between looting and the antiquities trade"):"Test Case: Peter Tompa on CPAC, the Supreme Court and the Trade in Ancient Coins", March 25, 2013.
Frankly, it is a bit of a disappointment, the answers to the rather stilted questions are basically exactly what you'd find on his blog. I am not sure therefore whet the point of that is.
So we have the "access of Americans to ancient coins of the sort openly collected world-wide" trope and much of the other coiney claptrap.
Tompa says: "The single-minded obsession with archaeological context puzzles most coin collectors". This is because they cannot see wider than their own narrow focus ("Numismatists derive their own context by studying the inscriptions and iconography found on coins" etc. etc.) and from that narrow focus these guys are capable of arguing round and round in circles as long as they can get away with it. Tompa dodges the question on looting, totally (moans about bad gubn'mint and the uses the PAS-arguement). He seems to think he was asked about how to get more coins on the market.
The interviewers played into his hands on the CPAC, CCPIA and "relationship with the museum community". Sadly, this interview reveals nothing, it looks more like a sad set-up by a US coiney mag. rather than an interview of a key player carried out by investigative journalists for a heritage blog.
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