The need for Education

Commenting on a post about use wear of gold coins (Re: gold wear and weight loss ) expert palaeometrologist Rob Tye notes:

Entirely correct and an important point. I can easily dig out examples of Historians, Archaeologists etc who do not understand points that parallel this For instance - a case where a historian assumed that every surviving specimen of a Charlemagne denier had lost 10% weight 'in the ground' Or another case - this time the reverse where a new weight standard was postulated for a group of silver coins that in fact had visibly suffered badly from chloride damage (to the trained eye), and had merely lost about 15% of their weight to corrosion. That is the competence point that is not coming out enough in the interminable debates about heritage issues. By aggressively pushing a claim to an exclusive right to own and interpret old coins, the objects are being passed into the hands of those who do not do the job competently. Its not just politicians who have fallen for a rather superficial analysis of the heritage issues - most beginner collectors seem to have too.

It seems there is scope for some sort of educational effort by the older more experienced collectors to counter the aggressive claims of exclusivity to keep study material like old coins out of the hands of those who do not do the job competently.