Coin Theft at Serdica

Archaeological news from Bulgaria, where excavations of a (1st to 4th cent AD) Roman site are ongoing in Sofia near the new Serdica II metro station:

A 46-year-old man has been arrested for allegedly stealing ancient coins from the Serdica archaeological excavations site in the centre of the capital city Sofia, Bulgaria’s Interior Ministry said. The man had been a temporary employee at the site, hired through a company to assist in excavations. While working at the Serdica site, he found the ancient coins [...] and decided to keep them for himself. He was arrested by anti-organised crime detectives and is expected to face charges under, among other things, laws on the protection of Bulgaria’s cultural heritage.

Now we all know that such coins would be unsaleable, because no reputable ancient coin dealer (and they all are, aren't they?) would touch such items as the Code of Ethics of the various trade associations forbids the dealing in coins stolen from excavations.

But what is not clear is what happens when a 46-year old man takes them to a 37-year old man who sends them across the sea to a 47-year old man in a suit, all with no questions asked. How is a V-coins or ACCG dealer in Wisconsin or California to know the recent origin of those coins if he does not require any proof of the actual circumstances of a given batch of dugup artefacts getting onto the market before purchasing them? The code of ethics assures customers they never deal in artefacts "stolen from archaeological excavations", but if there is no specific indication in it of the actual steps taken to avoid it, those words are totally meaningless in the realities of the no-questions-asked market for dug-up antiquities.

In such a market, everything "surfacing" (from "underground"?) on the market is assumed de rigeur to have come from "an old collection" and every seller is a "reputable source". Common sense shows that when it is (made) impossible for an outsider to check the realities behind the claims, nobody in the trade really would be terribly all interested in checking that assumption out in the case of any batch of nicely-priced attractive artefacts which they are interested in buying and then selling for a nice profit the proffered artefacts-without-a-proper-history. In that market, "reputations" are built on being able to supply nice authentic stuff, not the ability to provide documentation to back up assurances.

 The same article gives another piece of information:

Separately, Bulgarian-language media reported on October 10 2012 that treasure hunters had used a mechanical excavator to dig into a Thracian tomb site at Vratyak near the village of Tsarevets. The digger was used to plough into the middle part of the tomb mound. Officials from the Regional Historical Museum in Vratsa and police were investigating, reports said. 

So when the artefacts dug out of that site appear on the market, will they have a big label stuck on them "looted from Vratyak (Tsarevets) Bulgaria Septemeber 2012"? or will they "surface" with the attribution "from an old European collection" (nudge-nudge, wink-wink, say no more")?

Anon, 'Worker at Sofia’s Serdica archaeological site arrested for alleged theft of ancient coins', Sofia Globe Oct 11 2012.