Vote Riggers and Dead Elephants: Coineys Cheating on the CPAC

Commercial exploitation

Steve Battelle, coin collector no doubt wants to make sure his views get heard by the CPAC. So he sent  his comment early on -  21st April 2014 ("Ancient Coins should be excluded from the items regulated by cultural property restrictions for the following reasons") Among them is his deep belief in what he perceives to be the purpose of the PAS:

The real problem here is the short sighted regulations in the countries requesting the US to "prohibit" things in comparison with the enlightened policies in Great Britain. Don't try to make everything found the property of the "state". Instead allow finders to report finds to a government agency which: catalogs, studies, reports, and in the case of coins, eventually sells the coins to the only people who care and appreciate them: collectors. Then the finders share in the proceeds. That's the way to do it properly. 

Patronisingly he adds a conspiratorial aside: "I understand with the corruption of many of the same governments requesting these restrictions that's going to be difficult, but it's the best solution".

But just to make sure that the collectors get heard, he decided to add another comment, helping to boost the numbers in favour of the naysayers.   So on 13th May he graciously adds that the US government can with his blessing "ban ivory", but for Mr Battelle archaeological sites are not elephants, they can be trashed to provide collectors with the coins. After all, they are "studied and appreciated pretty much only by numismatists and collectors[...]" who are among "the few people in the United states who actually have interest and care about these items". And who in the US studies elephants' teeth Mr B? Is regulating commercial exploitation of a resource about the study of the debris it creates? How so?

Other people hoping to boost their case by boosting numbers by submitting multiple submissions (apart potentially from the twenty or so who commented wholly anonymously) were Michael O'Bannon  commenting on April 21, 2014 (total garble) and then again on May 13th 2014. Make of this what you will as a comment to 19USC 2602: 

Ancient coins are a way of viewing an ancient culture and learning to appreciate its people and their history. It is not demeaning to them or their history, nor is it in any way a major looting of their art, especially since the coins most of us collect are really ancient Greek or Roman history. 

Another who got confused whether he'd sent a comment or not was dealer Guy Rothwell who sent two comments on the same day, presumably thinking nobody had seen it the first time 05/14/2014  his comment to 19USC 2602: 

"Banning the import of Egyptian artefacts into the USA, regardless of source....".

Do you reckon he's actually read CCPIA? It seems tome he has not the faintest idea what he's commenting on. But he did it again, just to make sure he made the right impression of a US dealers' abilities to understand a simple issue.

Marc Breitsprecher is another one, a dealer lost in the web of lies spread by the lobbyists. Here he is waxing lyrical on 21st April 2014:

If we value our children, our heritage and our future, we will continue a free flow of ideas and information to our entire global society. 

Some of us manage to value our children and our, and their, future while opposing smuggling and calling it "ideas". What tosh, and its relationship to 19USC 2602 is.... what precisely? Maybe he'd realised he'd fluffed it, so he had another go.  This time after a bit of story telling and fantasies about time-travel (!) he gets all political, for some reason telling the CPAC in great detail what the Department of State is up to, and how he and his Congressman do not like it. Nothing here about 19USC 2602 either. Fluffed it a second time.

But the perseverance prize has to go  to Antonia Eberwein who managed to get three comments in on the last day: here,   here , and  here. Bravo, that will really make the CPAC sit up and take notice.

"US CPIA should REJECT the United Arab Republic of Egypt's new request..."

The what where? Would that be perhaps some cultural property information agency, or what? I'd chuck away that 1958 Reader's Digest Atlas of the World and get something a bit more up to date (Egypt's the square country at the bottom right of that long blue patch between Yurope and Africa, and Nasser is no longer President).

The MOU, if implemented, would not only seriously impact a legal trade but may also punish every American collector whose legally acquired collection may then be considered as contraband.

And they might come in the night to implant a chip in your head, or control you by spraying your house with those chemical vapour trails.... quick, where's the tinfoil? What is the matter with these people? Why cant they READ? Antonia thinks that the CCPIA is addressed to old objects in people's collections when they are IN the USA. She is obviously confusing it with something else quite different. But then, keeping people confused  is precisely what the mind-control freaks in the international coin trade want, isn't it? 

 Thank goodness that these comments are a matter of public record so we can all see what tactics US collectors are using to try and get the measures curbing antiquity smuggling from being adopted in their country. Shame on them!