The Usual Pro-Collecting Fluffy Bunnyism in UK Governments's 2019 Treasure Act Review [UPDATED]

Nothing to see here, move on please

I was disappointed to see a DCMS-produced consultation document on the handling of portable antiquities in the UK use tendentious phrasing. On page four at the top and bottom of the Treasure Act public consultation document, the government is telling readers (unneccessarily repetetively) of the document about the 'background to the proposals in this consultation'. These are truisms well known to anyone looking at the form of the global market in portable antiquities today:

The growth of online markets means that there is more scope for unscrupulous finders to sell unreported finds  [...] The growth of online markets has given the unscrupulous finder an outlet to sell an unreported find and currently there is no sanction on someone (sic) who knowingly buys such a find.

I don't know about you, dear reader, but I see nothing controversial in those statements. Absolutely nothing at all, that is what is happening, it is why the market in illicit and otherwise dodgy artefacts is thriviong, in the UK, USA, Germany and just about everywhere where greedy people have a disposable income. The growth of these markets increases the scope for such activity (nobody would deny that) and (also undeniably) provides an outlet for it. So, what the UK needs to do is to find a way to curb it. That's easier said than done, but that does not means we should shrug shoulders and dismiss the importance of trying. But that's just what Her Majesty's increasingly rather pathetic Government does here. Look at what they actually wrote:

The growth of online markets means that there is more scope for a small minority of unscrupulous finders to sell unreported finds.[...] The growth of online markets has given the rare unscrupulous finder an outlet to sell an unreported find and currently there is no sanction on someone (sic) who knowingly buys such a find.

On page 37 we find more of the same:

Since coming into force, the internet and online markets have changed the environment in which the Act operates. Now it is possible for the rare unscrupulous finder to sell undeclared objects (in other words, objects which have not been reported as possible treasure) without being asked to prove a legal provenance to the buyer.

Four things here. First, the Internet trading of antiquities began around 1995, so was already in progress when the Treasure Act was written and came into force. The fact that dealers and buyers do not ask for provenance has nothing whatsoever to do with the Internet. Thirdly, not provenance is meant, but collecting history. Fourthly, this text seems to think only finders sell finds, with a little bit of experience researching the market, one feels that dealers do also tend to be involved a little bit...

Who writes this nonsense? Whatever, Michael Ellis MP (Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Arts, Heritage and Tourism and MP in Sekhemet-sale land) puts his name under this. Whence the assurance that unscrupulous dealings in cultural property are such a rarity in the UK. Has Minister Ellis actually been in any London antiquities dealerships? Has he seen what happens in the 'Antiquities' section of eBay.uk and on Facebook? If he has, why on earth is this problem being so facily dismissed? Bonkers.

UPDATE 29th April 2019
Heritage Action get the point: 

 Small? Rare? The DCMS knows nothing about it, they rely on advice. Who advised them to put “small” and “rare”? It has to be PAS, surely? Why are we paying that quango to constantly paper over the truth?