If you have money and don't trust the financial markets, what better vehicle to park it in than ancient coins?Answer: probably any except a market which it is becoming incereasingly clear involves a huge amount of illicitly obtained material. I've been reading Nathan Elkins' The Trade in Ancient Coins in the USA: Scale and Structure'. Shocking stuff. He estimates that the US market consumes at least one million coins annually. I believe him. With 50000 collectors (a figure that Sayles came up with a few years back) that's only 20 coins each a year. The majority of them are those "uncleaned bulk lots" that dealers-who-think-we-were-all-born-yesterday want us to believe all come from "old collections" in the US since the old-timey years you could buy them by the bucket-load in Macey's (really?) but which those of us who have our eyes on that market know is an indicator of where the majority of the REST also probably come from.
I would say that Wayne Sayles' ACCG is well aware that when the public wake up and take note and say what they think about all this destruction of the archaeological heritage (just so a few foreign collectors can have gee-gaws to fondle and dealers can earn a quick buck or two) - collectors and dealers could well find that unless they clean their act up quite considerably and publicly, the bottom will be dropping out of this particular niche of the numis-market.
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11 comments:
Do you really believe that collectors are destroying archaeological heritage by buying coins? Wouldn't the constant armed conflicts and general poverty of so many people be a more likely cause?
You mention the ACCG which also is opposed to the looting of archaeological sites. Wouldn't a collaborative approach between all interested parties be the best approach? It seems to work quite well in the UK.
Do you really believe that collectors are destroying archaeological heritage by buying coins? Yes, I think it is quite clear from what I write here, while they do not give a hoot about where the individual items in their "collections" come from and failing in general to curate that information, then that is precisely what they are doing. And how long can they keep it up in the face of more and more public scrutiny? Let's see.
You mention the ACCG which also is opposed to the looting of archaeological sites . Is it? Is that what it says in its code of ethics, or is that just "scheduled archaeological sites"? (see Gill etc). How many of the coins in the ACCG "benefit auction" had documented provenance? In what way does ACCG actively curb the looting of archaeological sites in (for exampole the Balkans) to serve the US market?
Let's see a ACCG "dealers and wholesalers to avoid because they import bulk lots of metal detected coins from the Balkans" list. Then I will believe you are serious when suggesting this.
Wouldn't a collaborative approach between all interested parties be the best approach? Absolutely, why not get on to the ACCG and tell them that instead of all the ranting, name calling, weasel-worded communications of intent, snooping around the State Department because they say coins are archaeological artefacts (duh!) etc. etc, that this is what the serious responsible coin-collector wants to see from the body that claims to represent them.
It seems to work quite well in the UK. does it? If you look more carefully at the other posts here you will see that I remaint to be unconvinced about the overall truth of this convenient myth. By the way don't use the words "UK" when you mean England and Wales, in this cointext it is confusing.
The ACCG's resources and currently they must be used for the primary purpose of preserving collecting since some on the other side desire to abolish collecting. If the State Department didn't overrule it's own CPAC without giving a reason (Cyprus), and add coins to requests on it's own volition (China) then the ACCG could use it's time and resources for more constructive ends.
Perhaps you could be a bridge between collectors and archaeologists and help bring about a collaborative solution that enables collecting, reduces looting, and protects more sites.
No, that's a cop-out to say the ACCG cannot take ANY measures in the direction I said I'd like to see because "some on the other side desire to abolish collecting". That is simply a nonsense.
[There is a post earlier in this blog (search "bogeyman") giving a list of ALL the calls to "ban collecting" known to me or alleged, and I asked readers to submit more. The comments section there remains blank as I recall . Its just another of those collectors' myths].
Well, as far as I am concerned, coins (ancient ones in particular) are archaeological artefacts. I'd be surpriised to hear anyone argue otherwise. I would say if somebody asks me to "help save my artefacts" and there are coins there, I'd not see any reason not to save them too. What an odd notion. The people that workj in the State Department went to school, and therefore as educated people know that ancient coins are artefacts.
Anyway the ACCG took a lot of money from you all to "fight the State Department" over Cyprus and all they seem to have done with it so far is come up with a load of childish "black helicopter" (search term if you want to follow it up) hypotheses.
Nevertheless, my original point is that I believe that the ACCG will do nothing that might affect the flow of the current quantities of looted ancient coins onto the US market. I'd be only too happy to see them prove me wrong. They make all the right noises, they "say" they are "opposed to looting", but when you read the weasel-worded code of ethics, they do not do anything that would 'rock the boat' (There's a post on that in my blog). We can all only guess why that might be.
The ACCG representing all those people "passionately interested in the past" in their ranks clearly should be working with those raising concerns about the preservation of the world's archaelogical resources, not constantly using your money to kick against them. That only brings collecting (and the trade) deeper and deeper into disrepute.
Anyway the ACCG took a lot of money from you all to "fight the State Department" over Cyprus and all they seem to have done with it so far is come up with a load of childish "black helicopter" (search term if you want to follow it up) hypotheses.
On Cyprus the CPAC voted to exclude coins from restrictions, then the State Department ignored the recommendation. That's a fact not black helicopter stuff. Why would the State Department ignore it's own cultural property advisory committe?
Jorg, this is getting a LONG way from the topic of the post at the head of this string of comments. There are other posts on this blog about the ACCG "Black Helicopter" theorising about why somebody should think that ancient coins are ancient artefacts. I think there is a simpler explanation than some secret conspiracy against the American people. I really do.
But wait a second, the CPAC report is secret. After the FOI it was not released in full. But BEFORE that, the ACCG was saying they know what was in it. You now say you know what was in it. So you will know where the leak was.
Pray tell us how you KNOW what the CPAC report on import restrictions from Cyprus says.
but can you do it in the proper section please?
http://paul-barford.blogspot.com/2008/12/archaeology-for-all-us-portable.html
Thanks
Paul is correct. Jorg must be speculating about the CPAC decision, unless the ACCG is showing reports it has obtained to its members and this is the case, or unless a CPAC member is leaking information to dealers and collectors. Perhaps Jorg would like to clarify. Does he know something that we do not or is he simply speculating and phrasing it as fact?
Paul is correct. Jorg must be speculating about the CPAC decision, unless the ACCG is showing reports it has obtained to its members and this is the case, or unless a CPAC member is leaking information to dealers and collectors. Perhaps Jorg would like to clarify. Does he know something that we do not or is he simply speculating and phrasing it as fact?
Well, as you say, he's either speculating (spouting off about something he knows nothing) or he has said too much about a leak that is supposed to be an ACCG secret, because he's just sent a comment that changes the subject.
[I'm not publishing it here Jorg. It is off-topic. Post it again to a later thread, like the Bulgarian-Verona one].
Nathan, the ACCG has not got the full text of the CPAC report, Tompa in one of his "conspiracy theory" posts on his blog wrote about this. He apparently sees that too as evidence of some global conspiracy theory...
Paul, My source for the CPAC comment was the NY Times. As for my comment that you won't address it is based exactly on tne topic of this post. It seems you are the one who has gobe off topic.
Jorg, I assumed you were regerring to Jeremy Kahn, "Is the U.S. Protecting Foreign Artifacts? Don't Ask", The New York Times, April 8, 2007. But, no, it does not say that anywhere there. Could you clarify, from where do you actually have this information? What is its ultimate source? I think we need to know.
What you sent as a your further comment to this thread (called, as you will see if you take the trouble to scroll up, The future of the market for "pieces of past in your hand") seems to me to merely be an attempt to avoid answering the question about the source of your explicit statement about the CPAC. It is not on the topic of the future of the antiquities market . You are welcome to resend it under a more relevant post - such as the recent one on the Bulgarian suppliers of the US antiquities trade where I will have the greatestb pleasure in answering it in the context of the information offered in that post. Thanks.
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