Judge Forces Weiss to Write ...

As part of his sentence, a New York judge has declared that freshly convicted fake seller Arnold Weiss of Nomos "must author an article warning of the risks of dealing in coins of unknown or looted provenance for publication in a coin collection publication".


Nathan Elkins has kindly provided him with a bibliography on the trade in looted and unprovenanced coins to get him started (and within those works there will be found further bibliography):

Beckmann, M. 1998. "Numismatics and the Antiquities Trade," The Celator 12 (5) 25-28.

Butcher, K. and D. Gill. 1990. "Mischievous Pastime or Historical Science?" Antiquity 64 (245): 946-950.

Center for the Study of Democracy. 2007. Organized Crime in Bulgaria: Markets and Trends. Sofia: Center for the Study of Democracy. Online available: http://pdc.ceu.hu/archive/00003706/01/organized_crime_markets_and_trends.pdf.

Dietrich, R. 2002. "Cultural Property on the Move - Legally, Illegally," International Journal of Cultural Property 11: 294-303.

Elkins, N.T. 2008. "A Survey of the Material and Intellectual Consequence of Trading in Undocumented Ancient Coins," Frankfurter elektronische Rundschau zur Altertumskunde 7: 1-13. Online available: http://www.fera-journal.eu.

Elkins, N.T. 2009. "Treasure Hunting 101 in America's Classrooms," Journal of Field Archaeology 34.4: 481-489  with editorial introduction by M. M. Kersel and C. Luke.

Elkins, N.T. 2012. "The Trade in Fresh Supplies of Ancient Coins: Scale, Organization, and Politics," in P.K. Lazrus and A.W. Barker (eds.), All the King's Horses: Essays on the Impact of Looting and the Illicit Antiquities Trade on Our Knowledge of the Past. Washington, D.C.: Society for American Archaeology Press. 91-107.

von Kaenel, H.-M. 1994. Die antike Numismatik und ihr Material. Schweizer Münzblätter 44 (173): 1-12.

von Kaenel, H.-M. 2009. "Coins in Context - A Personal Approach," in H.-M von Kaenel and F. Kemmers (eds.), Coins in Context 1: New Approaches for the Interpretation of Coin Finds. Mainz: von Zabern. Studien zu Fundmünzen der Antike 23. 9-24 (pp. 22-23 discuss the coin trade specifically).

Walker, A.S. 1977. "The Coin Market Versus the Numismatist, Archaeologist, and Art Historian," Journal of Field Archaeology 4: 253-258.

Witschonke, R. "Guest Editorial," The Celator 23 (1): 4,22.

And of course there is always this blog and Nathan's own which discuss a number of cautionary cases. Sadly I suspect the notion of "risks" in the execution of the judge's proposal will be restricted to financial risk (and the risk of reputation I suppose), though [UPDATE]: a spokeswoman for the Manhattan District Attorney’s office is quoted by Chasing Aphrodite as saying, “Thanks to today’s disposition, the article to be written by the defendant for a coin trade magazine will raise needed awareness about unprovenanced coins, and will promote responsible collecting among numismatists”. That seems a bit naive, those blokes seem unreformable. A few jail sentences would not go amiss, and some of us were hoping this was the case that would set the US market thinking about responsibilities. All it has done is show what a dodgy market it is.  We look forward to seeing the article in due course. It's a shame Dr Weiss with his longterm and detailed knowledge of the numismatic market was not asked to write a book on the topic.