Roger Bland of the PAS will be speaking about the PAS and Treasure Act before a number of AIA chapters around the country. See http://finds.org.uk/news/stories/article/id/233
Given the audience, the lectures will touch not only successes of the system but gaps in the system as far as archaeologists are concerned. See http://www.archaeological.org/lectures/abstracts/5775
No system is perfect, but hopefully the AIA grandees will also pause to consider how the system in Britain and Wales compares with the systems (such as they are) in places like Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece, and Italy, when it comes to encouraging members of the public to report their finds.
and the LACK of a comparable system of outreach in their own country, the USA.
ReplyDeleteWill the grandees of the ACCG be there to spread the message that the USA "needs a PAS" to encourage and ensure recording and to set a good example to other nations?
Well, I think it would be a good idea to support, particularly if it were voluntary, but that is beyond the perview of the ACCG's mission. Perhaps, the AIA will take it up rather than engage in an unproductive bashing of landowners for simply wanting to exploit their own land.
ReplyDelete"The goal of the guild is to foster an environment in which the general public can confidently and legally acquire and hold any numismatic item of historical interest regardless of date or place of origin".http://www.accg.us/home.aspx
ReplyDeleteSo, if that is really true, that would include those (general public) who collect the coins found by users of metal detectors in the US surely? I have seen your fellows repeatedly trying to recruit stamp collectors and world coin collectors and get them involved in the fight against import controls, so why exclude the rights and needs of US metal detectorists from the collectors rights movement?
The US-based ACCG is not above suggesting what the Greeks, Bulgarians, Chinese and Egyptians and others "should be" doing to benefit US "collectors' rights", but cannot bring itself to demand that the same things should be done in their own country to benefit US collectors?
[The AIA is - surely - not touching US landowners, but their campaign is against the TV companies and their manner of promoting this mode of destruction of the historical environment, wherever it actually is].
I don’t see the term “metal detecting” anywhere in the ACCG mission statement. As I’ve suggested now for a third time, the issue is only relevant to the issue of import restrictions (which is a concern of ACCG) because the CPIA requires that effective self-help measures, like effective regulations on metal detectors, be tried first.
ReplyDeleteA voluntary recording scheme would be a great thing to try in the US, but others will have to take it on. The ACCG already has enough on its plate.