Why Coineys Don't Want the US to Help Bulgaria With Antiquity Smuggling

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SAFE urges: Say YES to Bulgaria

One might legitimately wonder why the coin dealers and collectors of the United States of America are so anxious that the CPAC gives a negative opinion on the request of the government of the Republic of Bulgaria for a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the United States of America to restrict imports of illicit archaeological and ethnological materials from that country. The SAFE webpage on the request has some details which might help unravel the mystery of why people who claim they are "interested in history", "learning about the past", "preserving relics of the past" and are "all against looting" in fact do not want to see the smuggling of artefacts out of Bulgaria stopped - at least not when it comes to stuff going into the USA. Certainly other people who are "interested in history", "learning about the past", "preserving relics of the past" and are "all against looting" do want to see the smuggling of artefacts out of countries like Bulgaria stopped as soon as possible.

The SAFE text includes a bibliography of just a few of the news items that have been coming out of the country in recent years about the successes of the Bulgarian authorities in apprehending smugglers and looters, and the sort of items that have been involved. Here we read for example:

The United States continues to be a major market for antiquities, especially those from the Greek and Roman world and particularly for coins. Quantifying the flow of goods in an illicit market is difficult; nonetheless, a handful of important recent studies show how the US market for antiquities which originate from Bulgaria remains strong.[...] looters in Bulgaria are eager to meet the international demand for antiquities with materials from their country. How much of this Bulgarian material do we know is bound for the United States? This is very difficult to say from the looting itself as often the looters on the ground do know the ultimate destination of the materials they find. Some recent border seizures, however, especially in the case of coins, have provided strong evidence for large quantities of fresh Bulgarian antiquities entering the United States for sale.

Of course if the US border authorities had been more vigilant (since 1983 the US has been a state party of the UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Cultural Property) and caught a larger proportion of those smuggling illicit artefacts into the the US and those importing illicit artefacts, we'd have a better idea of the US involvement in this trade. Despite huge numbers of 'erdefrisch' artefacts and coins being sold (sometimes sold in bulk by the kilogramme like potatoes) by dealers based in the US to US and foreign collectors, very few shipments have so far been challenged by the US authorities, and it would seem, none of the dealers handling this stuff been investigated.

As we can see it is US coin collectors and dealers who are most concerned that US does not pay more attention (through the issue of fresh regulations confirming US resolve to honour the obligations due to a fellow member state under the 1970 UNESCO Convention) to who imports what from Bulgaria and whether it is accompanied by the requisite export documentation. They claim that "coins are not cultural property" in the terms of the 1970 UNESCO Convention (which merely show they've not actually read the document) and curbing the imports of coins freshly smuggled from a foreign source country like Bulgaria would "destroy the hobby" and prevent collectors from getting their hands on ancient coins.

In an important study of the material and intellectual consequences of the trade in unprovenienced coins, it is reported that in 2002 one individual shipped approximately one ton of coins (approximately 340,000) from Bulgaria, through Frankfurt bound for the US (pg. 4). The same study points out another seizure which occurred in 2006, when the Bulgarian police unit for Combating Organized Crime intercepted a smuggling shipment of approximately 14,000 coins on a train from Sofia to Vienna, with the ultimate destination being the US (pg. 2). These reports point to two facts. One, that there are well-travelled illegal shipping routes which bring archaeological materials from Bulgaria for sale in the US. The second fact is that coins constitute a substantial proportion of this trade.

THIS would appear to be why US coin dealers are so concerned that their clients bombard the CPAC with negative opinions about curbing the trade in smuggled artefacts, or at least exclude smuggled coins from the list of items scrutinised at the US border for legality of origin.

UPDATE 24.10.11: In what must be, surely, the absolute peak of the stupidity of the arguments used by the dealers' lobbyists to justify the continuance of a bootleg trade in smuggled coins in the US, we now learn that one of them thinks (though whether sincerely is difficult to ascertain) that SAFE's advocacy of the US reinforcing its commitment to honouring its existing obligations under the 1970 UNESCO Convention is in reality a conspiracy to support corruption.

But, what will SAFE's campaign (and that of the AIA) for "no questions asked" import restrictions really do for Bulgaria and the protection of its cultural patrimony, but help support the corrupt status quo?

Tompa draws on a report on the involvement of organized crime in Bulgaria in the illicit antiquities and illicit drug trade and human trafficking (among other ) to suggest that "before" US dealers are required by their government to import only licit dugup artefacts, the Bulgarians should adopt the measures set out in this report. Oddly - though he gives page references to the places in the report supporting his case for the wholesale corruption the trade involves - he fails to do that for those recommendations. Probably this is because they included regulating the market (including a mention of the importance of the 1970 convention in this) page 188-9 and two sections on regulating the market in antiquities (pp 189-197). The measures which Tompa mentions are only part of the recommendations of the report as a whole. I presume Tompa is relying on the fact that coineys are not going to actually check for themselves whether his summary is a fair one of what it says or not. His blog however is not read only by shallow coineys. The rest of us will find that, on looking at the text to which Tompa refers, he covers up the fact that near the top of the list is this (page 196):

Improve international coordination to prevent the sale of contraband antiquities from Bulgaria at auction houses in Western Europe. This would probably deter attempts to traffic local cultural goods across the Bulgarian border.

Well, equally improving international coordination to prevent the sale of contraband antiquities from Bulgaria by dealers in the even bigger market in the United States of America would be an effective deterrent of attempts to traffic local cultural goods across the Bulgarian border. So sending a request to the US government asking for an MOU - which the Bulgarians have just done - is entirely within the scope of the recommendations of this report.

Tompa concludes that:

Under the circumstances, the US could best help Bulgaria(sic) by tabling any talk of import restrictions to allow Bulgaria time to act on the CSD report's recommendations. Though any looting of Bulgarian archaeological sites is regrettable, it is best addressed in Bulgaria itself through the regulation of metal detectors and serious consideration of CSD's other suggestions before import restrictions are imposed.

In the meanwhile US dealers can carry on buying coins and other antiquities from the market which Tompa has described in detail in his blog post. Some readers with a better grasp on reality than a ranting lobbyist may feel that Bulgaria can better be helped by could-not-care-less Americans being prevented from financing the illicit international deals of Bulgarian criminal groups.

On the basis of that text Tompa presumably would advocate the same about the other problems raised in the same report on transnational organized criminal activity, that the Bulgarians should be left to deal with their own drug, human trafficking and stolen vehicle problems by themselves and the American authorities should not lift a finger to stop these criminal gangs move their commodities across US borders. After all why punish consumers ("see what Prohibition did") and American free enterprise and small businesses when there is money to be made and obviously the sole fault anyway is those corrupt ex-commies over in Europe?

Vignette: Bulk lots of dugup ancient coins from the Balkans and Danubian regions are sold like potatoes in the US.

Photo: Bulgarian "tirówka" (roadside prostitute) a few years ago in Poland. Polish police fortunately do not follow the Peter Tompa "let the Bulgarians sort out their own problems with criminal gangs and not expect us to do anything at our end" school of thought, and a drive along the more notorious routes is now less colourful for lonely long-distance drivers.