Silver Strike
Forum Supporter
My beef being collected without archaeological consultation, .....
Amazing! No way I would have made this discovery public though! What the IRS doesn’t know doesn’t cost me…
However, haven't you noticed that show & tell is 99% of our hobby ? It's only human nature to want to give and take "high 5's". No one is an island.
And if the "IRS" is an issue, notice that there is perpetually stuff shown on our finds forums (granted , smaller amounts) and.... shucks .... that doesn't seem to stop any of us from posting our trophies. Right ? And ask yourself : "Has an IRS agent ever shown up your doorstep" ?
Lol, when I expense mine out (gas, equipment) I lose money. This is several million dollars. You can bet the IRS will knock on his door. I’m surprised the Feds didn’t sweep in to claim it was Union payroll and belongs to USA.
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This archaeologist's comments are disingenuous, at best.
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Tom,thanx for chiming in Matt.
What they are saying is noble for the work-that-they-do. Eg.: the whole "context" rationale. Because when you think of it, we do all gain from studies done, where complex detailed studies are done @ exact depth of objects, their relation to surrounding stratas of inches of other objects, their exact tilt-in-the-ground, etc.....
Take for example the archie studies around Egypt (the pyramids), or various battle monuments and forts and stages stops here in the USA. Ok, granted, it's cool to set aside some of them for the "archie-only-mindset". Sure.
But you are right in that there is just only so-much-information that can be gained from digging and holding a seated dime or buffalo nickel. At some point, after 100 of them , you have to say : "We've learned all we can learn", and the 101st seated dime TELLS YOU NOTHING MORE !
And yes, in plowed cultivated fields, or beaches (where sand comes and goes with each season & storm), then yes : All context is lost.
And to be fair, not all archies are of this "purist " mindset. But a few are.
Tom,
That answers a lot of the questions I had. I've only known a couple archaeologists, and they were both purists who believed that anything in the ground that isn't modern trash has an exhaustive story to tell, and that detectorists are merely plundering knowledge.
--Matt
I was torn about this same idea decades ago. It's rather easy to properly clean some gold coins yourself and gradually release them into the population over a couple short years. But this is a major hoard including high dollar rarities. With volume in the amount of coins found to be conserved , properly graded and then auctioned. I think you need the notoriety of it being labeled a hoard to maximize its auction value. Especially when you have numerous 6 figure coins. It would be very difficult today to release these rarities without experts raising suspicion on authenticity and how you obtained them. Unfortunately the finder has to bite the bullet on this at some point with Mr.Tax man. But he did find a windfall nonetheless.Amazing! No way I would have made this discovery public though! What the IRS doesn’t know doesn’t cost me…
Years ago, back in 1988 in my case, a lot of detectorists feared the IRS would come to confiscate your stuff if they knew about your finds. I was in a 1988 Summer edition of FOUND magazine under the name T.W. Brier, actually, the name of the apartments I lived in because I was afraid if I used my real name the IRS would come for me LOL.However, haven't you noticed that show & tell is 99% of our hobby ? It's only human nature to want to give and take "high 5's". No one is an island.
And if the "IRS" is an issue, notice that there is perpetually stuff shown on our finds forums (granted , smaller amounts) and.... shucks .... that doesn't seem to stop any of us from posting our trophies. Right ? And ask yourself : "Has an IRS agent ever shown up your doorstep" ?