Is Flipping more Moral than Collecting?

[Theagenes]

is Indiana Jones a flipper or collector?

 

Flipper. He sells the pieces he finds to the museum. (thumbs u

[dover]

is Indiana Jones a flipper or collector?

 

Flipper. He sells the pieces he finds to the museum. (thumbs u

 

who is to say the museum has the right to own them? or purchase them? What gives ole' Indiana the right to sell them as well?

 

If Indiana chooses the museum that he sells to, is not also deciding where to keep his treasures and hence a collector of sorts?

 

and perhaps, if ownership can be determined, he is a thief.

 

 

[whisp]

[Theagenes]

is Indiana Jones a flipper or collector?

 

Flipper. He sells the pieces he finds to the museum. (thumbs u

 

who is to say the museum has the right to own them? or purchase them? What gives ole' Indiana the right to sell them as well?

 

If Indiana chooses the museum that he sells to, is not also deciding where to keep his treasures and hence a collector of sorts?

 

and perhaps, if ownership can be determined, he is a thief.

 

 

Yes, Indy is little better than a looter - even by 1930's standards.

 

Hence, Belloq's line: "We are not so different, you and I."

 

 

[AtlasFan]

is Indiana Jones a flipper or collector?

 

Flipper. He sells the pieces he finds to the museum. (thumbs u

 

who is to say the museum has the right to own them? or purchase them? What gives ole' Indiana the right to sell them as well?

 

If Indiana chooses the museum that he sells to, is not also deciding where to keep his treasures and hence a collector of sorts?

 

and perhaps, if ownership can be determined, he is a thief.

 

 

Indy usually invests a lot of time and personal risk to obtain the items of antiquity he recovers...he should be fairly compensated. In all cases, its his intent that the artifacts should end up in a museum.

 

 

[dover]

is Indiana Jones a flipper or collector?

 

Flipper. He sells the pieces he finds to the museum. (thumbs u

 

who is to say the museum has the right to own them? or purchase them? What gives ole' Indiana the right to sell them as well?

 

If Indiana chooses the museum that he sells to, is not also deciding where to keep his treasures and hence a collector of sorts?

 

and perhaps, if ownership can be determined, he is a thief.

 

 

Indy usually invests a lot of time and personal risk to obtain the items of antiquity he recovers...he should be fairly compensated. In all cases, its his intent that the artifacts should end up in a museum.

 

 

A thief wants due compensation as well. They risk jail or lawful persecution after all (and all that other stuff that happens in our pitiful correctional facitlities).

 

His (Indians's) intent is to put it in the museum, but as we have seen, the museum may not have rights to the property. Who owns the rights to Tutunkomen's tomb? Egypt? a museum? who owns the rights to the Spanish Galleon off the coast of Carolina, sunk two hundred years ago? We have laws that try to determine this, I think it is harder than that however.

 

And I am not even sure I know the answer, even with my internal moral compass....

[namisgr]

"Is flipping more moral than collecting?"

 

Can't be, since there's not an iota of immorality in collecting comics or other mass-produced cultural artifacts that the majority discard.

[MCMiles]

"Is flipping more moral than collecting?"

 

Can't be, since there's not an iota of immorality in collecting comics or other mass-produced cultural artifacts that the majority discard.

 

...unless you are spending money that should be spent on more important things. Food, bills or other commitments, children, childrens' future, etc.

[letsgrumble]

i would not call flipping immoral, but saying that collecting is somehow less moral is crazy. morality shouldn't even come into it unless you are robbing comic stores to fill your runs. (or pressing ). i think either way is perfectly fine. i buy my books to read and keep. sometimes when i find out one has shot up in value i am tempted to sell it, but i usually don't. i'm keeping my tmnt collection vol.1 even though i see them sell on ebay for 4x what i paid just a few months ago. if i did sell it though, i wouldn't be hurting anybody

 

of course collecting is less moral. collecting is gathering items of like kind and keeping them somewhere away from the public. Keeping things away from the public is hiding, hoarding, gathering and putting under lock and key; freezing property and assets. Once assest and property begin to be kept in the vaults of the world by the elite of society, the divide between the haves and have nots grows. Everyone that keeps thier collections to themselves is denying the public of the ability to enjoy and share the "property". Why do collectors hate people? Why? Conversely, people that flip comics are continually bringing to market "new" and "fresh" material to be enjoyed again and again. Flipping should be called "sharing", collecting could be better termed as selfish and self centered hoarding of public assests.

 

Is there really any debate here?

 

 

Of course there is a real debate here.

 

Nicholas Brisbane has done excellent work in defining, defending, and explaining the importance of the collector to Western Society. Without the collector, he argues, there would be no/many less great works of art for future generations. It is the collector who has the insight, the passion and zeal and the resources to pursue material that libraries, museums and other institutions are ill euipped and short sighted to do. Libraries have been as desctructive of early primary source material as they have been protectors, and many of the great works of antiquities were in much better hands in private collections, than in public libraries.

 

The Library may be the great equalizer when it comes to education (to steal from Asimov and Franklin) but it is no friend to source material.

 

Another author of note who makes a compelling case for the hoarder is Thomas Cahill, with his provacative, but no less true, "How the Irish Saved Civilization" defending the merits of hoarding, hiding, collecting, for the sake of preservation of great cultures.

 

Public libraries are quite possibly the most immoral vetige of hammer and sickle, that our society keeps in plain sight. To think that an organization would offer objects and information, free of charge is sick. I tell you now, that morality is in the FLIP.

 

Look I'm not so quick to dismiss this thoughtful contribution to the thread.

 

However, observe that the collector's hoard as cultural repository projects us into the futurist's province, telescopes the here and now tangible morality of the flip forward in time on a gamble (drawing with it an element of risk akin to mortgage theory), and is nothing more than an attempt at archaeological wish fulfillment.

 

Ask Theagenes if all that goes in the ground comes back out of it.

 

 

Very little certainly. I think many of us do like to think of ourselves as caretakers of pop culture artifacts, myself included, but not only is that archaeological wish fulfillment, but is it also a false understanding of what an archaeologist or archivist is all about. It's not the artifact itself that is important, but the information that can be gleaned from the artifact.

 

The idea that collectors of antiquities have somehow protected and preserved culture is self-deluding nonsense. The creation of a market for antiquities has fueled the wholesale looting and destruction of archaeological sites around the world for centuries. This is something I deal with all the time. An artifact ripped out of its context, berift of its provenience, is essentially useless to someone trying to piece together the puzzles that are past cultures. It is just a pretty, shiny thing to put in a display case. The mindset of the looter, driven by the mentality of the collector tends to be driven by the monetary value of the objects obtained, rather than their historical or cultural value. Thus, the tiny gourd seed that may represent the beginning of horticulture is destroyed or displaced by the looter looking for that Archaic stemmed point he can sell on eBay for 50 bucks.

 

But does this discussion really have any relationship to a mass-produced, widely available object like a comic book? Not usually. Most of the common books have been reprinted or scanned into digital form. The information has been preserved - so what happens to actual object is irrelevant from a cultural resource management point of view. Flipping or hoarding - it doesn't really matter. Neither is moral or immoral when it comes to most comic books.

 

Only comics that are very rare or haven't been reprinted truly rise to level of something that we should perhaps think of as a cultural resource.

 

For archivists or museum curators, the individual artifact that forms part of a collection is not as important as the collection itself. Especially for printed materials. The informational value gleaned from a printed source is low. If it is a rare or unique item, its information can be readily made accessible in another format, especially in today's electronic age. Museums and archival institutions collect and preserve collections that consist of rare, one-of-a-kind artficats/records as well as those that are printed and widely available. The key is that collections are anchored by provenance. The value is hinged upon who brought the items together to form a collection, what was collected, when, where, and why it was collected, and even what wasn't collected. It's all about context. Don't get me wrong. Most of what people collect is rubbish. But it is important to the obsessive collector.

 

...

 

Is collecting immoral? Hardly. That is what we do and it doesn't harm anyone.

 

Is flipping immoral? I consider flipping more exploitative than immoral. Although, you would have to be unscrupulous to intentionally purchase a comic book from someone who is either ill-informed or desperate and then turn around, press it, list it, and sell it to some other sucker who is willing to overpay for it. It’s a predatory business-model that if it isn't immoral it's at least amoral... just like those baby-eating pumas as mentioned in another thread.

[Chespirito]

Since it went from owner to owner..is Flipper, a flipper?

[namisgr]

"Is flipping more moral than collecting?"

 

Can't be, since there's not an iota of immorality in collecting comics or other mass-produced cultural artifacts that the majority discard.

 

...unless you are spending money that should be spent on more important things. Food, bills or other commitments, children, childrens' future, etc.

 

Good point, except then it's no longer a hobby, and the accumulator is no longer a collector but rather someone with a pathology.

 

From Wiki:

>The hobby of collecting includes seeking, locating, acquiring, organizing, cataloging, displaying, storing, and maintaining whatever items are of interest to the individual collector.<