Way off topic but most of the people I have heard about that are
digging are extremely respectful of graves. They tend to be reverent.
A lot of helmets and other items will have the owner's name and I
know that some searchers have tracked down the next of kin or,
sometimes, the living vet, and returned them.
There are also various volunteer operations going on an Russia that
are trying to locate German bodies and graves. Supposedly, the bones,
personal items and ID tags go to Germany and the volunteers get to
keep the insignia and gear.
The ban on selling the US Medal of Honor is a perfect example of laws
against trade gone bad. Years ago, our nanny Congress decided that
the MOH could not be sold. They did not consider that some vets or
their heirs may need the 5 to 20k more than the medal or that some
families just reach a point with no interested heirs. Anyway, they
are all still sold but they are shipped to Montreal, London, and
Tokyo auctions and leave the country forever to disappear into
foreign collections. Good intentions with bad results.
Steve
--- In Ancientartifacts@yahoogroups.com, "rolf5568"
<heliosgallery@...> wrote:
>
> Yes, ever stricter (yet basically un-enforceable) trading laws tend
> to hurt those that obey them and assist those that don't. Hence the
> need for widely-agreed guidelines which make sense to the end
market,
> in our case the collector, as they're the ones that dictate where
> money is spent.
>
> Glad you mentioned 20thC war sites being dug up. Different things
are
> emotive to different people: but the problem of
illegal/unauthorised/
> (un-necessary!) digging is the same regardless of location, age or
> culture. With the exception of running the risk of finding unstable
> live ammo, that is...
>
> One can take the point of 20thC war sites a step further: I've
heard
> from militaria dealers that they've been offered stuff dug up from
> war graves... I see no reason to doubt their statements as I was
> neither buying or selling... but it highlights the problem of (for
> the sake of argument call it:) "looting". A load of new laws won't
> stop someone who is willing to dig up other people's parents and
> grandparents but a change in the attitudes of collecting will.
>
> Rolf Kiaer
>
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