Respecting the past......my fight with an eBay seller

For the past 10 days we have been camped next to sites where General Patton trained soldiers in WWII how to engage in desert warfare.  There are eight to ten of these Desert Training Centers in California and Arizona, most in such deplorable shape that they should be an embarrassment to all of us.

One thing the Bureau of Land Management makes cystal clear is that gathering artifacts from these sites is illegal.  The BLM shouldn't have to do this, because any person with a brain should realize that this history belongs to all of us.

But even on our trip we have seen artifact hunters--one person telling us he has been doing this for 30 years and who asked us to be on the lookout for two specific kinds of artifacts he was looking for.  We kept quiet.

However, I was not as quiet when I did a search on eBay and found a seller who was auctioning items he said he collected from one of the sites.  Here are his listings:

So I contacted the seller with what I thought was a nice email, asking him to either return them or allow me to pay postage to send them to me and I would.  Instead, he changed the description of the items to say that he had gathered them from "private property near the Desert Training Center." 

So either he lied about the first description or he was trying some dypsy do with it.  

So I reported him to eBay (selling artifacts is against eBay policy), and then informed the seller that collecting these items was against the law.  Instead of allowing me to return them, he just removed them from his seller list.

We look for artifacts.  Many we would love to keep, but we have kept nothing from all of our travels.  We found a WWII era 50 mm caliber shell casing, and a WWII coffee container that would have looked great with our vintage coffee collectibles collection.  We take photos, and then hide the things we found.  

A WWII era series D Coke bottle.

WWII era intact Absorbine Junior bottle:

50 mm caliber shell.

Old and very neat coffee container:

As I said earlier, anything we find we return in a more hidden condition.  People driving through on ATVs looking for these things will not be able to find them.

Each of the things we have found was handled by a boy or man who risked or gave his life for us and our families.  None of these things belongs to any of us--they belong to all of us.  

Here is a copy of the email I sent to the eBay seller:

Hello

My wife and I are currently in our pickup camper just outside camp Granite. We have been hiking through the Desert Training Centers, being quite moved by the experience. And quite chagrined by their condition.

We have found many interesting artifacts, and after photographing them we return them to where we found them. We believe those artifacts belong to the memory of the boys and young men who trained in these places, and who died for us.

We notice that you are selling many artifacts.  

We would like to ask you to consider just returning them to the site, out of respect for these boys and men, and in respect for future generations so they can experience these sites and realize the sacrifices made.

If not, would your consider selling all you have to us for postage, with the guarantee that we will return to the place next winter and return them to their rightful place.
Respectfully,