Unidroit-L has Another Commentator?

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Over on the Unidroit-L microforum for dealers in and collectors of dugup ancient artefacts (especially round ones with pictures on) the sole content these days has been a series of postings by its owner - coin dealer Dave Welsh, to which he appends his own "comments". Most of the other members of the forum apparently sleep through Welsh's monologuous renderings of why the entire preservation-orientated archaeological and museum world is evil. So it is a pretty quiet forum

There was the inevitable post about former CPAC member Korver's letter of resignation to President Obama leaked to the coiney press, and to my surprise I find that instead of Welsh's lengthy "comments" at the bottom, there is a whole post cut-and-pasted (without the embedded hyperlinks) from my 'Portable Antiquities Collecting and Heritage Issues' blog labelled "Commentary by Paul Barford in his Blog" (sic - should have read "one of his blogs").

Surely it would have been enough to insert a link?

Anyhow, let us see how many of his members are bothering to read to the bottom of Welsh's posts and feel constrained after reading my post taken from another context and provocatively inserted into Welsh's monologuous crassfest to join in the debate on whether resource preservation is about helping US commerce to profit from illegally exported antiquities...

I am sure there are many on that discussion list who think precisely in the same way as Korver .

A "passionate interest in history" betrayed by lack of Historical Knowledge

A US coin collector, John Pennock “ACCG ANA PAN” claimed on a US Collectors’ forum not to be interested in a “middle road” to ethical collecting and preferred the extreme approach of the Ancient Coin Collectors’ Guild, an "Internationalist" organization. His opinion was

“Being an ancient coin collector and not supporting the ACCG now, is akin to being Neville Chamberlin (sic) trying to appease Hitler by dividing Poland. That middle ground was an illusion then, as this is now”.

It seems to me that anyone saying they are collecting because of an interest in history might be expected to get that “history” right. In 1938 Neville Chamberlain, acquiesced to the beginning of the partition of Czechoslovakia, agreeing not to interfere with the annexation of the Sudetenland by Hitler. I wrote to Pennock off-list pointing out that this was not the “division of Poland” adding that “That happened at Yalta, and Roosevelt did that”. I actually made a point of signing the letter “Paul Barford, Warsaw Poland” just so he would know.

Unbelievably this is the reply I got:

You are wrong about Yalta and Roosevelt. That was a conference where the post-war fate of Poland was decided. Poland wasn't 'divided' there nor did appeasement take place there nor was Chamberlain there. Poland fell exclusively into the Soviet sphere and actually already was completely occupied by Russia. I'm not convinced you have firm grip on history or the lessons from it. But I'm pretty sure you won't write a blog about that.

Well, first of all, I said nothing about Chamberlain being at Yalta. It seems the coin collector is getting terribly confused. I really find it odd that if somebody sitting in Warsaw tells him that Poland was divided at Yalta, before writing that it was not, he might just check his facts before pressing the send button. Obviously he is too sure of himself to reach for the historical atlas. Before the Soviet invasion of September 17th 1939 (the one that led to the Polish officers who died at Katyn getting into Soviet hands) the eastern borders of the Second Republic extended far to the east of where they are now. The areas to the east of this line were "Poland" from the fourteenth century on, a huge area formed part of the Republic of the Two Nations until the eighteenth century partitions. Independent Poland after 1918/1919 again extended further to the east than Poland does today.

The eastern border of Poland, the one it has today was redrawn at Yalta. It cuts off the former eastern territories of the country and awarded them to the Soviet Union. Of course Pennock is also totally wrong writing that the area that is now Poland “actually already was completely occupied by Russia” at the time of the Yalta conference in February 1945.

The Technique of Deflecting Criticism from Antiquity Collecting

Like a ten year old boy little Dave Welsh tries to shift the blame for the outbreak of controversy on an artefact-collecting discussion list onto me. He writes:

I am sorry Kerry Drew finds this tiresome - I do too. It's unpleasant to realize that many don't understand how such acrimony began and who is responsible. If Mr. Drew went back to the beginning of the thread he would find that it originated in a nasty attack by Barford upon the integrity of coin collectors and the numismatic trade. Mr. Barford is very provocative in what he says, especially the insulting manner in which he says it. I try to ignore his provocations, but at times they must be answered. I do my best to stick to facts and respond civilly.
There is a price for a list allowing Barford to participate - constant acrimony. If Kerry Drew does not like that, let him complain to the listowner. Meanwhile it's unfair to say "a plague on both your houses" without knowing where the acrimony originated. That's what Mr. Barford wants - and his real reason for doing this. Dave Welsh

The guy has a nerve. Since few onlookers will by now remember where the fracas began, let us look at the history of this as this. This is not just an exercise in putting the record straight. This thread is quite typical of the techniques used by metal detectorists to inflame discussion on archaeological and responsible collectors' lists. They do this so that list members cease to pay attention to any mention of "treasure hunting", "metal detecting", "artefact collecting" etc. in the fear that another 'flame' war will break out. As we can see, another aim is to provoke list owners into taking action against the person whose stand against irresponsible artefact hunting and collecting.

What happened:
1) I published two texts on my blog. MY blog. (There are about 800 texts there on various aspects of portable antiquities collecting and the justifications offered by collectors for what they do - most of which on closer examination can be found wanting)
http://paul-barford.blogspot.com/2010/02/so-much-for-old-ancient-collections.html
I made a second post on the same topic just a bit later:
http://paul-barford.blogspot.com/2010/02/half-ancient-coins-on-us-market-are.html (Note the "new study shows").

2) Dave Welsh (not me) pulled the entire text over to an external artefact discussion list. He does not give the URL allowing readers to see it in its context of the blog.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Ancientartifacts/message/53557

In his commentary he provocatively calls me a "liar" (though in fact the figures are perfectly verifiable if you follow back the links - to prevent which he deleted them from the original before posting it)


3) He did the same thing on Museum Security List. This one has an open archive and appears in Google searches.
http://groups.google.com/group/museum_security_network/browse_thread/thread/aff687097df2394a

4) back on Ancient Artifacts, I replied, giving the link he had omitted
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Ancientartifacts/message/53558
(see also here http://paul-barford.blogspot.com/2010/02/barford-liar.html )

5) Many people looked on and said nothing (as usual). Things like this lead me to conclude that the notion of fair play is very rare in artefact collecting circles. Nobody will stand up to bullies like Welsh. A couple of people (including at least one dealer) however gleefully joined in the happy slapping.

6) One list member stands up to Welsh (only one)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Ancientartifacts/message/53560

7) That person is then put down. This is why people do not want to stand up to bullies like Welsh on lists where they feel intimidated to step out of line. In the process Welsh attacks a third person (common tactic among detectorists too - to widen the conflict)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Ancientartifacts/message/53587

8) Not wanting to prolongue the thread on the discussion list (by this time a parallel discussion is going on with the moderator of Museum Security network too), I reply to that, again on my blog.
http://paul-barford.blogspot.com/2010/02/more-character-assassination-from.html
The person attacked also replies: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Ancientartifacts/message/53593

9) Welsh then "puts the record straight", once again attacking Elkins.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Ancientartifacts/message/53698

10) Kerry Drew, a collector from San Francisco says "enough"
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Ancientartifacts/message/53706

11) Welsh replies as above.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Ancientartifacts/message/53719

List member Adrian White sums up Mr Welsh's tactics perfectly:

Once again radical anti archaeology lobbyist Dave is attempting to smear a respected archaeologist on this site. Scurrilous attacks by him and his fellow travellers are typical of the extreme controversial political lobby group he heads. He and his sycophantic apologists always use the same tactic: putting up a straw man (in this case the archaeological, scientific and curatorial community) and then hammer away at him with mendacious and mean spirited attacks, while at the same time spewing out long, pompous and extremely tedious posts attempting to justify the unjustifiable:- the continued looting of the world's ancient history for monetary gain. As to the amount of coins in tons which are shipped to greedy and uncaring collectors in the USA and elsewhere it doesn't matter whether the amount is 350k or 700k in looted coins, either figure is a scandal and a tragedy for the scientific study of ancient history.

This follows other such pearls of wisdom as for example "More Barfordian Bile" (15th Feb 2010) http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Ancientartifacts/message/53352

His contribution under the name "Any support for a Barford-free group?" http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Ancientartifacts/message/53418 and so on.

Let us note that he initially wheedles "Mr. Barford is very provocative in what he says, especially the insulting manner in which he says it. I try to ignore his provocations, but at times they must be answered". The place for answering a post on my blog is a comment posted to the blog, not copying my post wholesale to a totally diffferent forum. Mr Welsh's motives for doing this are as clear as can be. Of course it would have sufficed to answer it in the format: "this message is an answer to Paul Barford's post at http://blogpost... Note though that he did not post any of this to HIS OWN Unidroit-L forum to "answer" it. That would not have the potential of creating the same amount of fuss, anyway its the Ancient Artifacts forum he wants me chucked off as he cannot control my posts there like he can on his own forum.

In reality, I think the problem is that Welsh realises that in the face of the sort of analysis of the pro-collecting arguments which the preservationists present, the arguments for the maintenance of the no-questions-asked nineteenth century model of artefact collecting are simply untenable and bankrupt. So instead of trying to further justify what Adrian White correctly identifiers as the "unjustifiable", Welsh simply attempts to silence the critics. Since he has elected not to attempt this by fair means, he feels justified in utilising the option of foul means.

But it's "not my fault Miss: Barford started it.... wahhhh!!!"

Metal Detecting in California

"It's guys like this get metal detecting a bad name", I can imagine the tekkies all wailing in unison. It is however supposed (I think) to be parody indicating what some epeople think of metal detectorists.


"Looking around the park, one has to wonder, what is the history of the park, what kind of people went there, when was it made, what activities went on there? The truth is we simply don't know [...] There's no records, we don't know the history"..."I don't want to dig too much here, [...] metal detecting is not permitted in the park, so I kinda go on the outskirts, and hope they are cool with that, or they do not see me...". "Some people say you should fill in your holes....". "Maybe what I really need is a girl detector".