It is quite instructive to look at the approach of two US cultural property lawyers to the public commenting on the Cyprus MOU renewal. It seems that there were a total of 338 comments electronically submitted regarding Cyprus’ request but only 23 comments regarding Peru’s request. Rick St Hilaire gives a sampling of the range of arguments offered for and against the Cyprus renewal (I note he could not avoid having to use "(sic)" in the two coiney examples he selects) - Comments Submitted to CPAC in Cyprus and Peru MoU Extension Requests.
The lawyer who is a paid lobbyist of the coin trade associations however totally ignores Peru and concentrates on the percentages of the comments "for" and "against" the renewal of a bilateral agreement with Cyprus and how many mention coins - 77% of Posted Comments Against Renewal of Cypriot MOU. He makes no mention of how many of the coiney replies actually refer to the criteria mandated as the theme of CPAC deliberations. According to the figures on this blog, 20% of respondents were supportive of the idea of the US continuing to monitor imports of artefacts from Cyprus for documentation of lawful export, but 77% were against it (3% were comments wholly off-topic):
This breaks down over the coin issue thus:These percentages of course do not add up. Turning them into numbers and calculating the percentages properly reveals the following:
Those against the renewal that mentioned coins: 71%
Those against the renewal that did not mention coins: 6%
Those for the renewal that mentioned coins: 8%
Those for the renewal that did not mention coins: 12%
Those against the renewal that mentioned coins: 92%Ninety two percent of the Philistine comments were written by coin collectors and dealers. None of their names appears on the list of those commenting on the Peruvian request.
Those against the renewal that did not mention coins: 8%
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