A virtual coin dealer ethic?

For a while now the ACCG website has proclaimed that the previous president of the Guild, Peter Tompa was on his way out and his place will be taken by Bill Puetz of VCoins. This is potentially a very interesting move as V-coins ('The Virtual Coin Show'SM ) is currently being advertised as being 'The Strongly Ethical Alternative to eBay'. The reader is informed that:

Vcoins began several years ago as a marketplace for ancient coins and antiquities dealers to have an easy-to-deploy storefront for their coins. Vcoins founder Bill Puetz has a zero-tolerance policy regarding counterfeits, scams, and other dealer shenanigans, and his marketplace is widely seen as being the elite place to buy and sell ancient coins. Vcoins has recently branched out to include World and U.S. coins sections, and as more people get frustrated with eBay's escalating seller fees and disregard of buyer needs, expect Vcoins to flourish. Vauctions is an offshoot of Vcoins, and a good place to shop for coins if you value a secure marketplace with a strong dealer code of ethics, and want to have recourse if you have any problems.

That is comforting to the potential buyer I am sure. Let’s have a look at Mr Puetz’s “strong dealer code of ethics” and see how many of the issues of concern to the conservation lobby it addresses. Well, actually, none whatsoever. The VCoins Dealer Code of Ethics begins:

VCoins recognizes that all dealers are legally obligated to operate their businesses in accordance with applicable local, state, and national commercial laws. A further requirement for participating as a dealer on the VCoins site is strict adherence to the VCoins Dealer Code of Ethics. This Code is intended to promote mutual trust between dealers and the public through fairness, honesty, and integrity. […Article 2:] I will conduct my business in a professional and ethical manner, and will exercise common sense and courtesy in my professional dealings, to ensure that no discredit is brought to VCoins or other VCoins dealers.

The code has 14 principles most of which seem to be general business-centred issues about payment, representation of items and so on. Two of them (8 and 10) deal with the problem of the many fakes out there in the no-questions-asked market, several about not applying various unfair means to bump up the prices (including “historical conjecture, unsubstantiated provenance or pedigree, or other tactics that may artificially inflate the perceived value of an item.” Number 13) and so on. The emphasis is on customer-protection rather than providing a framework for the ethical handling of archaeological material.

So what is there here about illicitly-obtained archaeological artefacts? Maybe article 9 might be thought to do the trick: "I will not knowingly deal in stolen numismatic items. I will report such items to the proper authorities if they are offered to me”. Good. But what actually is the Vcoins definition of a “stolen numismatic item”? Here as anyone who frequents their discussion lists can see, numismophillic standards differ from those of the archaeological resource protection lobby. To judge by current ACCG rhetoric, a item illegally excavated and illegally exported from any country other than the US is not “stolen”, since the foreign laws that restrict US citizens making a quick buck on items removed from the archaeological record lying in the territory of a foreign country are by definition “bad laws” made by “retentionist nationalists” and anyway enforced by inevitably “corrupt” foreign governments. Applying the "two wrongs make a right" type arguments, these collectors and dealers use such generalizations to insist that buying coins from individuals that trash archaeological contexts breaking such laws in the process is “supporting free enterprise”.

The ACCG’s own weasel-worded “code of ethics” (with which the Vcoins one has a number of verbal parallels) has been discussed by Gill. Collectors are expected to “comply with all cultural property laws of their own country” (only, but then they can ignore the implications of those of others). Collectors should refuse to “knowingly purchase coins illegally removed from scheduled archaeological sites” (not all countries have a scheduling system, in them all archaeological sites are protected by law) or “stolen from museum or personal collections”.

There is nothing here in either the Vcoins of the ACCG Codes of ethics about ethical collectors and/or dealers ascertaining the coins they acquire do not come from illegal excavation or illegal export. There is a difference between merely obeying the minimum a law requires of ou and ethical conduct. There is nothing in the VCoins "code of ethics" about dealers telling customers where the coins come from and providing documentation of provenance and export licence compliance if asked (let alone offering it). Nothing of that sort.

Recently we looked on this blog at Neil Brodie's article about the trade in Iraqi antiquities and Peter Tompa's claim that the ones on the US market could have come from "department stores" in the earlier 20th century. I found on the VCoins portal sixteen cuneiform tablets (they are listed in the post below this), none of which had any sort of information offered where they had been before the dealer offered them for sale, nor when and how they had left Iraq.

No documentation of provenance whatsoever. We are asked to believe that all of them are former “Macey’s items” no doubt. So would not a “strongly ethical” antiquities showcase expect its dealers to be, nay insist on them being, explicit about what they know about the past of the items like this they are selling? I would say that in the present climate, dealers offering unprovenanced cuneiform tablets (to take just ONE category of ancient artefacts) on the Vcoins website are treading a ver fine line. There are two types of thinking observers of the VCoins website, those who on seeing these unprovenanced items have very real, very pertinent questions, and those who simply assume they "know" from recent news where these things came from which VCoins is offering for sale. I think not stating clearly why these objects are documentably licit is indeed undermining the “mutual trust between dealers and the public” and also undoubtedly potentially bringing “ discredit […] to VCoins or other VCoins dealers”. Presumably VCoins and other VCoin dealers do not see it like that. I'd very much like to see see a journalist take Brodie's article, Tompa's excuses and no-questions-asked-no-information-offered web sales sites like the VCoin website and see what the thinking public make of it all.

This highlights the key question. In what way is the Vcoins "Dealer Code of Ethics" in its present form actually going to help stop unscrupulous individuals trashing archaeological sites the length and breadth of the ancient world for the money they can make from no-questions-asked dealers in Europe, the US and beyond? In what way does it help create an ethical trade in archaeological material?
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