EBay, Lueke and the Coin Elves (Part 1)

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It seems the coineys have it in for Professor Nathan Elkins, an academic numismatist who sides with the Preservationist White Hat guys rather than with the no-questions-asked antiquities buyers and sellers. First to start the mud-slinging was bitter Old Man Sayles, copied by Jorg Lueke on his "A Historical Perspective" ("exploring history and how it is crafted, manipulated, and used by governments, agencies, and others") blog. When however challenged to formulate and back up his views more precisely, he now claims that what he wrote was "satire". Lueke now follows up his ("satirische") Schlammschlachten, ja, ja with an exposition ("Archaeologist finds all the "evidence" he needs on Ebay") about why what we can see on eBay in fact does not show what it seems to show. Once again this is focussed on the person of "Dr. Nathan T Elkins an Assistant Professor of Art History at Baylor":

In a recent appearance focusing on the cultural property of Bulgaria Dr. Elkins displays a fondness for using Ebay as a source for his arguments. This comes as no surprise as Dr. Elkins used Ebay as a research tool when he wrote his article “Why Coins Matter”. This fondness for superficial results from Ebay opens up several interesting questions that I shall examine.

Having said that of course, the coiney does not. Now, Nathan Elkins has been looking into the US trade on ancient coins for a number of years, and from what I know of that research (which I venture to suggest is considerably more than what Jorg Lueke knows about his research) I would not say that his conclusions are based on "superficial results from Ebay". That is the first straw man argument offered by coiney Lueke.

Coiney Lueke indicates that in his opinion on the extremely rare occasions a seller of dugup ancient coins gives the information from which country they came, it would be "a rather naïve belief [...] that eBay sellers are in all cases telling the truth and not simply marketing what they think will work". In other words' Lueke has no problem accepting that collectors of ancient coins in the US and elsewhere are being lied to by the dealers selling them. Given an awareness of that level of deceit, in what way could that person then turn round and say this is a "legitimate market"? Why would somebody lie about coins coming "from Bulgaria", instead of admitting they come from which country?

Mr Lueke suggests that the number of coins actually being sold by eBay is less than the number presented by Nathan Elkins (nota bene NOT in his comments on the Bulgaria MOU but in several articles on the more general issues connected with the US trade in dugup coins). Lueke suggests we should note how many coins are SOLD rather than the number offered from sale. Presumably he considers that the ones not sold any given week are the ones that fell off trees or were produced by the coin elves and did not come out of the ground, so they are irrelevant to the question about the damage caused by the no-questions-asked market masking looting. But it is not just eBay is it? Let us then note that in parallel venues are also relatively high numbers of coins offered for sale. Just one example is the ACCG's old fried: V-coins (today: "160 Ancient Dealers, 98,940 Items, $22,743,591" - all produced by the coin Elves no doubt).

As it happens, today there are 26,725 results to be found in the category "Coins ancient" on eBay.com. If we narrow that down to those located only in the US, the result is "16,359 results" - so today 61% of the global trade in such items is being done out of the USA (a country whose soil does not as a rule produce ancient coins). Lueke himself notes that when he looks for coins produced in the Roman mint Serdica (mainly supplied the Balkan region and limes, but these coins also reached Britannia) "most of those are already in the US".

The figures for eBay sales of such items today are far higher than the number "5000 a week" mentioned by Elkins and now criticised by Lueke. Yes, it is true that not all those coins are sold from week to week, while some with "buy it now" prices will have gone well before we open the page to look. The feedback for many sellers shows the number of items week after week, month after month. This is (part of ) the turnover of the market, obviously many more items need to be added to the market every week and month to produce the stock from which clients with different needs and financial abilities select what they fancy. Many US dealers have stock which extends far beyond what they put on sale on the Internet any given day, week or month.

What one can see happening on the Internet is not just an array of (superficial) "figures" used to "support" any arguments. This is information anyone can see for themselves when they open the eBay page (or any other dealer's list, or "uncleaned bulk lots of coins" sales sites and discussion lists, of which there are many). However you spin those numbers, they do not reflect too well on the trade when you see how many of them are offered with any sort of information where they came from or any sort of expressly-worded guarantee offered by the seller that he only offers coins where there is due diligence done to ascertain that these are not freshly surfaced coins from recent looting and smuggling, but material he can demonstrate to the buyer has a documented history of licit acquisition and legal export (and legal import into the US).

Looking at the sorry array of sales offers giving no such guarantees (let alone offering potential customers any information about the documentation of legal collecting history and export) and comparing that with what (in the situation this market finds itself in) a truly legitimate market in such material should look like in the second decade of the twenty-first century can readily lead the onlooker to certain conclusions.

Lueke says:

In my view there is no rationale for believing the figures hastily printed off of (sic) eBay and woven (sic) around in front of some bureaucratic committee [i.e., CPAC PMB]. Even if true the story this volume of coins would (sic) tell about a marketplace, one that doesn’t exist in reality, would be contradictory at best [...] all these numbers are make believe and created just to serve a pre-defined purpose: to make it harder to collect coins [...] these numbers are hogwash and I will shortly present a more rational analysis of the current market.

It is unclear why Lueke says there is no "marketplace" for ancient coins when he himself makes use of it to add to his own collection. Anyway, we await with bated breath his promised analysis of the figures to show that the Coin Elves do not really put all that many undocumented ancient coins on the US market.

Chinese challengers to Sothebys and Christies

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In the past five years, there has been a massive expansion in the market for Chinese art as China's millionaires and billionaires begin to invest in art and rediscover the heritage of their homeland. As a result in the space of little more than a decade, from very modest beginnings, Chinese auction houses have come to rank among the biggest in the world. In this period rivals have emerged in China that present a major challenge to long-established art auctioneers such as Christie's and Sotheby's (which until now together had almost dominated the sale of fine art, jewellery and antiques across the globe), such is the extent of the manner in which the tastes of China's newly affluent art collectors are transforming the global art world.

According to French auction body Conseil des Ventes, half of the world's top 20, and five of the top 10 houses are now Chinese. Six years ago, Beijing Poly, China's biggest auction house and now the world's third largest, did not exist. China Guardian, the world's fourth largest, has only been operating since 1993. China Guardian took $606m (£386m; 450m euros) at its autumn auctions in Beijing in November, more than the $412m Sotheby's took at its Hong Kong auctions in October. Christie's took $367m at its November Hong Kong auctions. Beijing Poly's parent company, part of a sprawling conglomerate said to have links to China's military, is also rumoured to be preparing for a stockmarket flotation. If successful, it would make it the world's second-largest publicly traded art industry company after Sotheby's.

Katie Hunt, 'The Chinese challengers to Sothebys and Christies', BBC News - Jan 31, 2012

So, I wonder what the Chinese market is for dug up "minor antiquities" looted from southeastern European Roman sites, or Late Roman Bronze coins? Will the Chinese market overtake the voracity of the US and western European market for such 'play the archaeologists/connoisseur' geegaws? Will the latter become a backwater in a few decades time? Will Chinese buyers ask the right questions of their suppliers and cut out the dodgy dealings?

Vignette: Reawakening the tradition of the Sung elite? Shen Kuo.

Germany Returns Looted Afghan Sculpture

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This week, Germany returned an ancient pre-Islamic sculpture looted during Afghanistan's civil war. The 30 cm high limestone relief shows eight figures, and dates from the second century AD,. The figures are all facing left, and are believed to represent people regarding Buddha on his throne in the ancient kingdom of Gandhara (which extended across part of Afghanistan and Pakistan). The object was housed in
Afghanistan's National Museum before it was stolen. It was flown to Kabul earlier this week. The report says that "Afghanistan's embassy in Berlin has been investigating who owned the sculpture since it appeared in Munich a year ago" (surely that should be BEFORE it surfaced).

As warlords battled for control of Kabul in the early 1990s following the Soviet exit, fighters pillaged around 70 percent of the museum's antiquities, or around 70,000 pieces, selling the choicest artifacts on the black market.[...] Afghanistan's looted treasures have appeared across Europe, the United States and Japan. Kabul might see twenty ivories currently held in the British Museum return sometime this year, [Omara Khan] Massoudi [the director of Afghanistan's National Museum] said. An agreement with UNESCO [...] and global police Interpol to recover stolen [items] is proving successful: he said over 8,000 artifacts have returned since 2007, including a fifth century wooden Buddha. Tens of thousands are still missing however.

Sadly the looting is still going on even after the US-led invasion:

endemic corruption, poverty and insecurity after thirty years of conflict mean even new discoveries do not reach cultural authorities. Ancient Jewish scrolls, which Massoudi confirmed were recently smuggled out, are currently being kept by private dealers in London. Most of those that have been recovered and are in Afghanistan are under lock and key until larger spaces are built with the top-notch security systems museums in the West have. Ten million dollars have been committed, half from the United States, for a new museum with such features and climate control, to be built next door to the old one over the next three to four years.

Photo: Reuters (Omar Sobhani)

Amie Ferris-Rotman, 'Germany returns two millennia old Afghan sculpture', Reuters - Jan 31, 2012

18th January: The ACCG Gives an Account of Itself

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Twelve days after the fiasco at the State Department, the ACCG attempts to give an account of itself (P. Tompa: 'CPAC Meeting on Renewal of MOU with Cyprus' 30/1/12). Quite interesting, compared with the scope of the designated list, is the list of the individuals (representing nevertheless organizations) who "spoke against the MOU". All coineys: Peter Tompa (IAPN/PNG); Wayne Sayles (ACCG); and Eloise Ullman (Industry Council For Tangible Assets ICTA), The National Trade Association for the Rare Coin / Precious Metals / Tangible Assets Industry.

Peter Tompa spoke for IAPN and PNG, two trade associations that represent the small business of the numismatic trade.

As we saw, he claims a conspiracy against the coineys, revelations from a former CPAC chairman and a disregard of the CPAC of ACCG "scholarship" intended to show that import restrictionss on coins without documentation of lawful export are unjustified.

Wayne Sayles indicated that the ACCG represents the interests of the approximately 50,000 serious ancient coin collectors in the United States. The ACCG is interested in fair and equitable application of US law. The CPIA was meant to protect significant artifacts, not everything under the sun. In response to a question from [Patty Gerstenblith ], Wayne Sayles indicated that it is unrealistic to ask the small businesses of the numismatic trade to provide provenance information for every coin they import.

I see they are still sticking with their "50 000" estimate, that represents a massive erosion of the archaeological record of the rest of the world if these guys are all buying dugup antiquities without ensuring legitimate origins each and every time. Of course CPAC Chair Patty Gerstenblith will know that the CCPIA says nothing whatsoever about establishing provenance as a criterion for legal import into the USA, just the accompaniment of an export licence or the declarations envisaged by that law.

Eloise Ullman indicated that most ICTA members have under 5 employees. She also noted that President Obama recently recognized that it is important not to overburden small businesses with paperwork when his administration signed onto an effort to end a burdensome requirement that coin dealers prepare 1099 forms for every purchase over $600.

Here is the ICTA website. What an odd little organization. "1099 forms" are documentation for tax purposes.

Coiney Academic Rigour: Adding it up at the CPAC

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There is a telling comment in Peter Tompa's account of the 18th Jan meeting with the CPAC. The Ancient coin Collectors' Guild had sent them a 'public comment' intending to demonstrate that Cypriot coins would not all be "first discovered" in the territory of Cyprus. They provided a list of hoards to show that such coins were sometimes buried in antiquity outside Cyprus. There was not much academic rigour in their presentation of the 'evidence' to support (rather than in the spirit of academic enquiry examine) their case, as they omitted the hoards found ON Cyprus. In his presentation at the public CPAC meeting, Prof. Nathan Elkins pointed out the sleight-of-hand. Look how Tompa justifies it to the slack-jawed masses:

If you add together a list prepared by Wayne Sayles of coins found outside of Cyprus and a list Elkins compiled of coins from Cypriot contexts, that shows that Cypriot coinage is much more prevalent in Cyprus than outside of Cyprus.

Why, in order to arrive at a conclusion about "where" certain things happened in the past would one have to "add" fresh information to what the coiney dealers had already supplied to the CPAC - except if the coiney dealers (this so-called "Ancient Coin Collectors Guild" run by people calling themselves "professional numismatists") had supplied the public enquiry with one-sided, FALSE and MISLEADING information? What other explanation is there?

Germany Returns More(?) Stolen Artefacts to Iraq

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Today in a ceremony at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Germany turned over to Iraqi officials45 relics stolen from Iraq's museums and archeological sites in the mayhem that followed the U.S.-led invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein in 2003. There was a gold jar (surely not the Münzhandlung Hirsch Nachfolger one again?) a bronze axe head, clay tablets bearing cuneiform script, a metal amulet and other artifacts "seized by German police at public auctions".

"We are heading in coming months to retrieve Iraqi artifacts from Britain, from the United States of America, and Canada ... we will follow Iraq's antiquities wherever they are," said Abbas al-Quraishi, head of Iraq's artifact retrieval department.

Aseel Kami, 'Sumerian gold jar, other relics returned to Iraq' Reuters Jan 30, 2012
This actually looks like a rehash of a story from last year.

Looters, Black Archaeology, Collectors and the archaeological record in Bulgaria

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According to Katerina Ivanova writing in today's "Standart" ('Crisis Inspires Investing in Stolen Antiques'), a side effect of the current economic crisis, the instability of the financial markets and the fluctuations of gold prices, is that "many affluent people prefer investing in antiques of great collectable value". This is currently leading, she says, to thousands of antique coins, statuettes and vessels being illegally exported from Bulgaria to undiscerning collectors (she uses the word "connoisseurs") in Western Europe.

This tendency has been confirmed by the growing number of cases of customs officers who discover illegal antique coins, medieval rings, statuettes, pottery etc on passengers. Cases have been reported when coins are found in parcels for countries like the USA and Switzerland. The flow of illegal antiques in Europe is mostly directed to Italy, Germany and France. The smuggling of culture items is performed by both Bulgarians and foreigners, according to information of the Customs Agency. Smugglers often contact black archeologists from Bulgaria, buy the illegally unearthed objects and sell them at much higher prices to collectors abroad.

The term "black archaeologists" used as a euphemism for looters seems about as appropriate as the term "professional numismatists" for coin shop owners.

I wonder whether the lobbyist for those so-called professional numismatists will be writing to Ms Ivanova to tell her that the "answer" is to "regulate metal detectors"?