tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19567381.post6040450883089580897..comments2024-02-05T04:09:09.848-05:00Comments on A Gift For Polydektes: Encouraging better documentation by rewarding itEd Sniblehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17346392312959087285noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19567381.post-59889874336451713392008-07-27T09:50:00.000-04:002008-07-27T09:50:00.000-04:00Ed: Levante is no longer alive, he died in 2007 ac...Ed: Levante is no longer alive, he died in 2007 according to an obit in THE CELATOR.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19567381.post-60535713872005316162008-07-26T21:18:00.000-04:002008-07-26T21:18:00.000-04:00A major reason we will continue to see resistance ...A major reason we will continue to see resistance to improved documentation is the insistence on an unrealistic date such as 1970 or 1973 as the date before which otherwise undocumented coins must be shown to have been in commerce. I believe that any prospect for better documentation (which I support) will necessarily have to involve a grant of "amnesty" to all of the undocumented coins that have entered the market over the last 40 years. The genie can't be put back in the bottle; insistence on an unrealistic date will not reverse the damage that has been done to looted archaeological sites.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19567381.post-49230880688859593242008-07-26T09:59:00.000-04:002008-07-26T09:59:00.000-04:00Voz, you've hit the nail on the head.Incentive...Voz, you've hit the nail on the head.<BR/><BR/>Incentives further up the chain should have a big effect. The incentive of offering farmers market rates, or even 33% of market rates, strongly encourages them to fight off looters with shotguns and pitchforks. Me withholding an auction bid causes a coin to go to the underbidder, driving down prices — the lower prices encouraging new collectors.<BR/><BR/>The fiction that buried coins are 'owned' by nations often means when coins are found, digging roads and after mudslides, that the coins go to the capital city museum. This means no local stakeholders. How about a law saying buried artifacts on public lands are owned not by the 'nation' but by <B>the local school district</B>? Such a law would encourage all parents to report looters, if only to allow the district to seize and sell the coins for schoolbooks. As a side effect the looter cools his heels in jail for a few years and perhaps reveals the location of a site to the archaeology department of the provincial college.<BR/><BR/>A commercial approach means the collectors money is diverted from looters to anti-looting forces.<BR/><BR/>It might be possible to get similar effects in a non-commercial framework. Perhaps putting control of coins regional or village micro-museums would at least excite the part-time staff to stop looting. The commercial framework seems best to me though.Ed Sniblehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17346392312959087285noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19567381.post-60244418401503082332008-07-26T06:05:00.000-04:002008-07-26T06:05:00.000-04:00"Expressing moral values though shopping doesn't s..."Expressing moral values though shopping doesn't seem able to provide incentives to change much."<BR/><BR/>Especially true in cases where demand far outstrips supply--as it does in this instance. Dealers would simply shrug it off and sell the coin one of the scores of other interested parties. This model has zero percent chance of effecting any change in the market.<BR/><BR/>VozVoz Earlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11345952820382749813noreply@blogger.com