Ethical dealing: The cock crowed thrice

One of the potential dangers in being a vociferous opponent of cultural preservation measures and at the same time running a business selling antiquities must be that it increases scrutiny of the business practices of one’s firm. Californian “professional numismatist” and vociferous pro-collecting activist Dave Welsh, the proprietor of Classical Coins for example seems unclear where some of his goods actually come from.

For example he is cagey about what he has bought in Great Britain. He candidly admitted in November 2007 on his own Unidroit-L discussion list:

I have never received an export license with any of the items shipped to me from the UK.

and subsequent discussion on that list indicated that he was not the only US portable antiquities dealer that was unaware of the circumstances under which a UK export licence was needed for coins and other antiquities. This incident was discussed in Heritage Action’s online journal.

A few days ago when discussing what the recommendations of Britain’s Portable Antiquities Scheme on buying antiquities would mean for a collector of portable antiquities, Mr Welsh expounded:

I'm an ethical dealer, and have never acquired an antiquity from the UK that was not provenanced

So no export licenses, but the proprietor of Classical Coins assures archaeologists that the only portable antiquities from the UK which he handles are provenanced. In the light of these, at first sight, unambiguous statements, it is curious to learn just a day later:

I do not make artifact purchases in Britain. I have never acquired an artifact in Britain, and do not ever expect to do so

I think all past, present and potential clients would be interested to learn the relationship between these three apparently conflicting statements and the assurances of the proprietor of Classical Coins about the origins of his stock in general. Do any of the coins he has had in stock come from provenanced British finds or not?

Professor Elizabeth Stone’s analysis (published in Antiquity with a summary here) of of satellite imagery of the holes dug in Iraqi archaeological sites since the weakening of controls due to political instability introduced by UN sanctions in the 1990s has shown that some sites there were being targeted in all probability for Parthian and later coins. These coins are also sought by artefact hunters in neighbouring Iran and Afghanistan, and again the looting in the latter has not abated since the recent US-led invasion. Artefacts from the latter region are now appearing on eBay and attempts to stem the flow by introducing new legislation were strenuously fought by the US antiqity dealer lobby (including the ACG). In the light of this it is interesting to note that Classical Coins has among its "new listings" a group of 17 coins of the relatively short reign of Orodes II (57 to 38 BC) they are all in a similar state of preservation, have the same reddish brown surface deposits which suggests that they might have been found together – but where and when? Although Welsh states where he got his other “new listings” from ("ex Dr A. W. Potts collection”, presumably that sold by Freeman and Sear Feb 2007), the origins, neither general nor specific, of these new Parthian items is not even hinted at. Since no provenance is cited, how does Mr Welsh and more importantly the clients of Classical Coins, know these do not come from recent looting of archaeological sites in Iraq, Iran or Afghanistan? Mr Welsh has many other similar coins here, again no hint of where they came from and how they got into his shop.

The same goes for Classical Coins’ "specials", job lots of Roman provincial “coins that we were able to acquire in quantity and can offer to the collector at particularly attractive prices”. From whom were they “acquired in quantity”, and where did they originate? They seem not to be metal detector finds from legitimate searching in Great Britain, some of them are stated to be “Roman provincial bronze coins from Thrace and lower Moesia” (ie the area of modern Bulgaria), some are specifically noted as having been struck at Thessalonica and Siscia. Many different dates and coin types in various states are involved, and these coins have the appearance of being the pickings of accumulations from metal detector use on many different archaeological sites and findspots across a region. The looting of archaeological sites in the Balkans and along the limes to produce relics and coins which are then sold on illegal domestic markets and smuggled out to foreign ones is a severe problem. Here organized crime is known to be deeply involved in this trade (for example, see the fifth chapter of a recent report on Organized Crime in Bulgaria which Nathan Elkins draws attention to). Again in offering these artefacts for sale, the Classical Coins website gives no indication of where these coins came from and how they reached California. How is the client to know what they are buying and into whose pockets Mr Welsh's dollars were ultimately ending up to get them?

These are of course questions that could be posed to other dealers selling this kind of material. There are many dealerships like Classical Coins (over 200 in the US alone) and serving 50 000 US collectors of ancient coins who seem could not care less where the coins are coming from as long - it would seem - as they have a ready supply of them at prices they can afford. But what price is the archaeological record of the 'source countries' paying?

REFERENCES
Shentov, O., Todorov, B. and Stoyanov, A. 2007, 'Organized Crime in Bulgaria: Markets and Trends', Sofia, Center for the Study of Democracy (this thought-provoking report figures the antiquities trade alongside trade in drugs, prostitution and human trafficking, and vehicle thefts).

Elizabeth C. Stone 2008, "Patterns of looting in southern Iraq", Antiquity, Vol. 82, No. 315, 125–38.