Patrimony Policy Not Affecting Coins: Coins and the ICE

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Coiney journalist and Ohio coin dealer Richard Giedroyc has decided to attempt to prove in an article in the US magazine Numismatic News that (US) Patrimony Policy is Not Affecting Coins . This is of course at odds with the ACCG standpoint which is that it does and will affect the imports of ancient coins into the US in addition to the huge numbers already there in existing collections. Giedroyć notes:

Since both Italy and Bulgaria are countries on the short list that the US State Department has been listening to as the State Department decides if it will honor the demands of certain vocal archaeologists and several foreign governments curbing the import of world coins deemed to be cultural patrimony by foreign governments, it is appropriate for readers to learn about the coins that have been recently forcibly repatriated from the United States. More specifically it is the recent activities of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement that are examined here.

Well, first of all, it is not clear what (or whose) short-list Giedroyć is discussing, and why Bulgaria is on it. Bulgaria is of course (or has been before they started running out) a major source of ancient coins for the US market we know that huge shipments of them have been coming to the country for well over a decade to wholesalers of eastern European origin settled in the USA who then supply other dealers and sell direct to collectors too. It would be interesting to learn that the State Department has been "listening to" Bulgaria asking US authorities to step in and stop the imports of any antiquities that have not been legally exported.

Is the sole source of the concern about illegal exports of cultural property "certain vocal archaeologists" and "several foreign governments"? I rather think that when it comes to cultural property as a whole (paintings, furniture, manuscripts and incunabula, ethnographic material) it is not just archaeologists that would be getting "vocal". I think a lot of people (including local collectors and history enthusiasts) would be concerned about the drain of such objects from any individual country abroad. What the archaeologists would be urging however is that archaeological material is included on the lists of cultural property protected from destructive exploitation and illegal export. I would say that it is the duty of every government, among other things, to take care of the cultural and natural assets of the territory under their direct and indirect control. Not to do so as fully as possible would in my opinion (and not only mine I am sure) be failing in one of their duties as a responsible government.

Worth noting is Mr G.'s little manipulation talking of "world coins". In collecting parlance this term refers to things like 2004 commemorative rubels, recent small change from the Andaman Islands and 1920s coins of Tibet. The curbs on illegal exports which so concern the ACCG are ancient coins which are dug up on ancient sites in ancient lands outside the USA. The use of the term "world coins" in Krause's "Coin News" by Giedroyć is an attempt to manipulate collectors of so-called world coinage that the ACCG's concerns affect them too. They do not.

A little reflection would reveal that any "coins that have been recently forcibly repatriated from the United States" will have been stopped from entering the US market because of the lack of documentation showing they had been legally exported or due to some other import infringements which prevent them legally entering the US. What is wrong with that?

The ACCG, as Giedroyć notes, argues that

"coins are a mass-produced item, not something that is unique as is a single piece of art. The more current problem, as far as coin collectors are concerned, may be what constitutes “ancient art”.

Nonsense. The problem is what constitutes cultural property, and the archaeological remains of a territory are cultural property, as they are in the USA itself. Not all the items seized in Operation Cerberus (the Four Corners/Blanding artifacts case) were "ancient art", old blankets, menstrual pads, utilitarian knives etc. Yet they were and are cultural property. The ACCG is misrepresenting what the object of protection of the archaeological resources of a source country are, the knowledge of the past of the region that can be recvovered from the proper investigation (and not mere commercial mining) of the archaeological record is the cultural property of the region, and of all of us. This is intellecttual property which is destroyed by the commercial mining for selected items which have a commercial value on the collectors' market. Whether or not the objects in those archaeological assemblages were mass produced (like pots for example were) or not makes no difference to the amount of destruction caused by getting them out of the ground and into the Wisconsin collector's back room.

Giedroyć then shows that there have been only three ICE press releases in Feb 2010, 2006 and 2005 which mention the "forcibly repatriated coins". His point is that unless ("world coin") collectors support the ACCG, it will get worse. Somehow he misses the seizure ACCG Baltimore Illegal Coin Import Stunt of the upcoming (amended and revised) test-case. He misses the cases currently being discussed in two threads on the closed access Yahoo Ancient Artifacts and Moneta-L discussion list where coin dealer Cameron Day had some coins seized by US customs. There are in fact a lot of ancient coins and other antiquities being seized by US customs which are not being trumpeted in individual ICE press releases. In a recent post to one of the lists (I forget which one) Wayne Sayles boasts how he has a number of times been called in by the ICE to give an expert opinion about the coins seized in a number of cases. There are therefore many cases not mentioned by Giedroyć of coins being seized and investigated by the ICE.

There are however also enormous numbers getting through the barrier of bubbles that separates the US antiquities market from the pool of illegal dugups. Like the ACCG, dealer Richard Giedroyć of HCC Inc. & Krause Publications would apparently like to see to see this barrier weaker still and ancient artefact imports not controlled at all. I think the rest of us would like to see the US doing its bit to help curb the international market in illegally obtained antiquities.

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