What is wrong with most of you? The only poster here that makes any sense is Diver Doc! While most of my TH'ing is done on land, you have to realize that if those coins were recovered INSIDE Saudi Territorial Waters, they were the property of Saudi Arabia. The diver was stealing Saudi Historical Antiquities! No less than the British in Egypt, or the Nazis in every part of the world they occupied (only on a smaller scale).
Now, I'm not Big Brother, but I do have a good sense of right and wrong. What the US Government has done to many people who have found large caches and treasures (Doc Noss for instance), is pathetic and forces people who find things to keep them a secret. Take for instance some one finds some gold bars with Spanish mint markings and assayers marks on them. Their historical value would be enormous, but knowing the government would do everything in their power to confiscate without compensation everything found, they would be forced to either sell them underground, or have them melted down and sell them for gold value alone, thereby losing objects of great historical significance because of our pathetic treasure trove laws.
I take great pains to be very careful about breaking laws in areas I TH. Take for instance, State Parks; there are no metal detectors allowed in California State Parks. When a trail of monuments leads me into a State Park, I box up the metal detector, so if a Ranger comes visiting, there is not even a possibility of a misunderstanding. When I got out of the military in the early nineties, I worked for SaudiAramco training the Saudi National Guard to use different types of communications equipment. The Saudi Gvmt are not cheapskates. They have just seen the national treasures of many countries looted by foreigners, with the rightful owners having no say in the matter. I'll bet if the diver had contacted the Saudi Antiquities Ministry before leaving the country, they would most likely have cut him a sweet deal, and had his name on a plaque in the Saudi National Museum as the discoverer (the only scary part is that once the phone call is made, the cat's out of the bag)!
The State of Florida has a great deal with treasure salvors in it's territorial waters. I'm not positive, but I believe it's a 50/50 split with the salvor (except for objects of historical significance, and they basically buy the salvor out). England has a good system as well. Turn in your finds, they value them and either let you keep non-historic items/coins or gives you market value.
In this one instance, the man was wrong and the US Government was right (God, it pains me to say that)! They are still returning things looted by the Nazis even though the current owners bought them legally. In the seventies and eighties, museums around the world that had Egyptian Antiquities were forced to make deals with Egypt to keep them on display, or send them back. Same with Iraq, and several other Middle-Eastern Countries.
Didn't mean to preach, but.................
