Tuesday, May 25, 2010

An all time low

Rabid anticollecting archaeologist-blogger Paul Barford took his irrational, corrosive hatred of private antiquities collecting to an all time low with this below-the-belt screed:

"Coin-Scholars, You Can Even Wear Your Data!

http://paul-barford.blogspot.com/2010/05/coin-scholars-you-can-even-wear-your.html

California "professional numismatist" Dave Welsh says that archaeologists do not "understand" coins and that the so-called "numismatic context" needs to be protected AGAINST them. Welsh also claims in his lobbying activity that restricting coin sales to those that are of demonstrable licit provenance would "destroy" a discipline that has been developing snce Petrarch collected coins all those years ago, the science of numismatics. One research scholar from his circle protested that he does not need to know where the data he uses in his research come from. Now somebody has drawn my attention to a subsidary of Mr Welsh's "professional" activity which suggests you can wear them too.

A Susan Welsh of "Santa Barbara, California" has a firm called "Classical creations" which makes bead jewellery, necklaces earrings etc. Interestingly it has the same phone number as Dave Welsh's coin shop in Goleta, 11 km from Santa Barbara. Its website describes Welsh's "Classical Coins" as its "parent company". ("Classical Collections is a division of Classical Coins"). The pendants frequently have Middle Eastern or Far Eastern connotations, which is interesting given the general preponderance of ancient coins from the same region in Welsh's coin shop stock and no explanation of how they got there.
..."


No explanation of "how they got there" is owing to Mr. Barford or anyone else. The items in question were licitly acquired under the laws of the United States of America. The collecting community has put up with a great deal of unmerited and immoderate abuse from Mr. Barford, but this latest extreme example of the depths to which he is capable of descending in his ceaseless attempts to provoke the collecting community merely highlights his own utter lack of civility and common decency.


I do not mind Mr. Barford's many defamatory remarks directed at me because he has in fact become an embarrassment to more respectable members of the archaeological community, who in many cases are just as much disgusted and repelled by the tactics of this bigoted and irrational extremist as are the collectors at whom his rants are directed.


I do however very much mind Mr. Barford's foul remarks directed at my wife. It is really a pity that the present day standards of society do not make it possible for me to invite Mr. Barford to "take the air in the country."

Message
Dave Welsh
Classical Coins
service@classicalcoins.com


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