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I was interested in a comment at the end of the article by Chris Watt ('Scotland’s buried heritage looted by treasure hunters', Herald Scotland 17 Feb 2011) which indicates that numismatics is given low academic priority in Scotland: Most discoveries in Scotland involve small artefacts like coins, but the Treasure Trove report warns that expertise in this area is now lacking due to the retirement of the country’s leading numismatist. The National Museums of Scotland has not replaced its coin expert, the report said, meaning that officials face the prospect of bringing a coin-dealer up from London to handle Scots finds.Surely if there are no local numismatists capable of doing the job, it's probably easier to send batches down south. Does it have to be a dealer though? Why not knowledgeable collector (we are always being told by the coineys that there are such). Anyway in the majority of cases, can't this be done online these days? So the ACCG could help out too.
I suppose now we'll be hearing the coineys alleging that if the state gathers such finds for the public collections, this hinders the growth of coin collecting in Scotland, which deprives the nation of such expertise. I wonder though how many Scottish collectors are patrons of eBay and V-Coins regardless of what happens to local finds that are reported. And where do the finds that are not reported go? According to the coiney arguments, if the state takes them off finders reporting them, the rest must be melted down to create "tourist trinkets", eh?
Vignette: map for US collectors of dugup ancient coins who have difficulty in distinguishing "England" from "Britain". Scotland is the orangy bit at the top.
