UPDATE Addendum to: "The Heritage Debate: The Voice of Reason versus Aggressive Defenders of Vested Interests" (21 August 2013)
I would not return to this idiocy again were it not for the fact that it seems worthwhile drawing attention to the manner in which dugup coin dealer Wayne Sayles interprets ('If the shoe fits wear it') the above text. It speaks volumes. He clearly has not understood about whom Nigel was writing, and all too tellingly misinterprets the phrase "the only important people, the superior stakeholders". From everything else he has written on the topic (see 'The Heritage Journal'), Nigel obviously means by this the public. The public from whom artefact hunters and dealers take the archaeological record without a thought for them. I think his point is well-proven by dealer Sayles simply not comprehending what any of this is about! It is also, I would have thought, obvious that when Nigel talks of "vested interests" of the group he names at the beginning of the text, it does not mean "commercial interest" alone.Then see how Sayles interprets Nigel's whole text to be about coineys: "That is not only inaccurate, it is hugely insulting to millions of people in general, and tens of thousands of independent scholars".
But then is that not - in the definition of that term "independent scholar" - where this discussion begin? I stand accused of "snobbery" and much worse for questioning that what in general is done with these dugup artefacts merits any such term. From what I've seen of the company he keeps, Bazza Thugwit from Billaricay is probably the sort of person who'd beat you up if you dared call him that. Again, Sayles exhibits his self-self-self approach in this passage:
The "status quo" mentioned above so flippantly is actually a 600-year-old tradition with far more achievements in the science of Numismatics than any academic institution ever dreamed of.The status quo to which Nigel refers concerns the legislative frameworks of all types of collecting and what goes on around it. Metal detecting does not have a "600 year tradition" unless you want to count the "science" of dowsing and treasure-scrying. Nor do their Bloomsbury-based "partners".
It seems to me that in his haste to drag this down, once again, to a personal level and lean on the 600-years tradition of the study of coins, Mr Sayles is missing out not a few important issues about where we go forward from the current status quo. What does he suggest is the remedy to the problems he prefers to brush aside? Has he anything to add to the discussion on this?
