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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Drusus, post: 514616, member: 6370&quot;]I agree that looting happens and it happens a lot and I as a collector do not want it to so I am more than willing to work with them if they will work with me, problem is they dont want to work with collectors, they simply want to people to stop and that just isnt going to happen. Its a matter of grasping the reality of the situation, swallowing your pride and accepting that people will collect these things and try to work with it.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>In Britain...what many metal detectorist will do is ask a person who owns the land if they can detect there and they make an agreement before hand as to who will get what if something is found.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Now if they DO find something, it isnt theirs, or I should say it isnt theirs YET. They will have to report it and the government will then come in and take a look at what they found and the site. If they feel it is just an isolated cache and nothing found was of any real importance or rarity, they will pass on it and allow the people to keep what they found...from there they can sell it or keep it, its theirs legally now.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>If what they found is decided to be important and it should be in the hands of a museum...they will compensate the people who found it...as far as I can tell its rather fair although it might not be as much as one would get for some rare artifact on the open market...all the same...in the UK you have Treasure Hunters who work WITH archeologist directly (I have seen this first hand) to help them find sites that archeologist think are there...and you have people reporting finds.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>In the Balkans...if a farmer digs up a cache of gold coins...what do you think he will do? Tell the government he found them so they can be snatch away with no compensation....or will he sell them secretly? or worse yet...melt them down and sell them for the gold value....most likely the later. Heavy handed measure such as this simply will NOT work...it will NOT stop looting. Nothing will stop looting all together but I DO believe that it is better to try to legitimize collectors and treasure hunters, give them credit and some of the treasure then to vilify them, drive them underground, and leave them no alternative but to loot.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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