Thursday 21 December 2017

A Mote or a Beam?



Each and every single on of the coins in this photo, were it to 'surface' (from underground) on the international antiquities market or in the shops of ANY of the dealers belonging to the trade associations of the coin trade would appear without any paperwork, with the buyer expected to unquestioningly accept the 'assumption' that they came - not from a stash of decontextualised loot like this - from some 'old collection' of bygone years.

I see that everybody's favourite antiquities trade lobbyist Peter Tompa is trying to argue that these items are not worth much (a proposition I would find hard accepting - not being able to see what is on those coins  - maybe Tompa knows)  and that they might not be from 'grave robbing' but "merely" surface metal detector finds, so that is somehow OK. Past experience shows that he is unlikely to be able to actually argue that point in an informed and coherent manner. So he'll not try, the aim of all the advocates for commercial/collectors rights over antiquities is in any case not so much to participate in any discussion as an equal partner, but simply to try to throw a spoke in the wheel of other people's. That is all they are capable of attempting.


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