SS Holds out on Reworded Coiney Code of Ethics: ACCG's Hooker Soothes

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The ability of the collectors of ancient artefacts to shoot themselves in the foot really amaze me. Just twenty four hours ago with great fanfare collector's rights lobbyists the ACCG announced their new code of ethics which seems to go so much further than the old one.

(1. Coin collectors and sellers will not knowingly
purchase coins stolen from private or public collections
or reasonably suspected to be the direct products of
illicit excavations in contravention of national patrimony laws. Coin collectors and sellers will also comply
with all applicable customs laws".)

Doesn't that sound wonderful? The dawn of a new era in collector-archaeology dialogue it seems to most people. Then the reaction of members start to trickle in. "Capitulation!" calls it Scott Semans, looking fair set to withdraw from the ACCG in protest. "Not so!" leaps in quick-as-a-flash ACCG spokesman, Canadian amateur celtomaniac John Hooker. For "National patrimony laws are not the same as any UNESCO declaration":

Purchasing an object subject to national patrimony laws would result in a charge of receiving stolen goods -- However, the state would still have to prove that the object came from there and nowhere else and that it left that state after such patrimony laws were implemented. [...] If national patrimony laws are brought against someone then there is a criminal prosecution. Then the state would have to offer the proof that the items were taken from the state and that this happened after such laws prohibiting the sale were in place.

Now wait a minute, I thought we were talking about a code of ETHICS, not what the foreigners can "do you for" and what not. So basically Hooker is letting slip that in the eyes of the ACCG and its members that what is meant by abiding by "national patrimony laws" is only those where the dealer or collector can be shown to be culpable. So basically what he is revealing is that the new wording of the code of ethics means nothing more than just keeping to the law of the collector's (dealer's) own country. Which is what the old one said. So really no change whatsoever.

According to Mr Hooker:

"Due diligence" is a term that gets cited a lot by people who are clueless about what it means.

Really? Hooker suggests that it refers only to "matters of great monetary value". He says that in the antiquities business the idea of "asking for proof of innocence" is "repellent to all ethical and moral people with reasonable intelligence". Hooker enlarges on the point:

...if a state claimed that an object came from within its borders and yet offered no proof, and the same type of object had also been found in other states then there will be no problem for the buyer as no state has sole claim -- it cannot be returned by Canada to any of them. Let's say I buy a Campano-Tarantine didrachm from England and Italy says it "wants it back". In Canada, all I would need to do would be to show that such coins have been found in England -- or rather Italy would have to prove that they are only found in Italy. As I identified such a find for an English detectorist on a metal detecting forum then Italy would not be able to make any claim.

Ah so that's OK then, you can carry on buying and selling stuff no questions asked as long as its a type which has never been found outside a single country. I'm interested by the notion that the Code of Ethics says then that they will abide by these "national laws" which ACCG's Hooker suggests have absolutely no clout in the countries where foreign collectors collect, but avoids mentioning international documents such as the UNESCO Convention signed by their country.

So basically this revised Code of Ethics is regarded by insiders of the ACCG to be merely camoflage, worthless words for "anything goes, unless you get caught". Which is basically the grounds on which the whole no-questions-asked market in portable antiquities in general has always functioned.

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