Why we are Losing

Collectors who are worried about the future of our avocation need to be paying more attention to the way public opinion is being molded by our opponents. It is quite a sobering exercise to type in this phrase into Google and do a search there:

antiquities collecting under threat

What comes up, page after page, is not how we are under threat but how collectors pose a threat to antiquities! This witch hunt is a typical example of False News. Our opponents have obtaind a monopoly over the media, and thus are able to dictate the current mood and turn it against us collectors.

Why is this happening? Tjhe fiasco over the Libyan MOU comments prompts some thought on this. One reason, it seems to me, is that a lot of the lobbying is associated with those whose business is the supply of specimens to collectors - the dealers. Are they not primarily concerned with maintaining their privileged access to the sources of coins and antiquities as they come onto the market? We note the frequency with which they announce that any of the measures proposed by opponents of collecting will lead inevitably to a rise in prices. But a rise in price does not equate with a lack of profit for them, in fact quite the opposite. Could it be that the half-hearted opposition exhibited by the dealers and their lobbying organization is merely a front to raising prices and profits - but putting the blame on external factors? Just a thought, but worth considering. Maybe we collectors should be taking a more active role, grouping ourselves to undertake more co-ordinated promotion of what we do, and remove the fate of the hobby from being the exclusive preserve of the dealers.