ACCG Dealers Still Attempting to Drag Disreputable Numismata Case Through the Courts

Transatlantic telepathy, I was just thinking yesterday in my car that it was about time I did another post on the dodgy Illicit Coin Import Stunt by the ACCG which seems to have ground to a halt.... and the next day their lobbyist posts something about them continuing this sorry affair (Saturday, July 16, 2016, 'ACCG files Motion for Summary Judgment'). Apparently Bailey and Ehrenberg - Benefits and Employment Law Firm has filed a Motion for Summary Judgment on behalf of the ACCG in this sluggish case.

The motion asks for the return of its Cypriot and Chinese coins because the ACCG has rebutted the government's case for forfeiture with expert testimony.  

But, surely the whole point is that the ACCG in the House of Angels HQ never received the coins from Spink's in London, who shipped them (apparently without the right paperwork) because they were stopped at the border. I cannot see how property which has not been received can be "returned". The objects should be returned to the sender - Spink's with a request from the US government to British Customs to check if an offence has been committed according to the UK legislation (in this case the Dealing in Cultural Objects (Offences) Act 2003). Anyhow, the new assault on common decency by the coin dealers seems a bit pointless:

The expert testimony of Douglas Mudd [Curator at American Numismatic Association] shows that it is more probable than not that the coins were outside of either Cyprus or China before restrictions were imposed.  The expert testimony of Michael McCullough, Esq. demonstrates that the Cypriot coins were legally exported from the UK which under EU law binding on Cyprus satisfies US law.

You wonder what these people eat for breakfast. It is more probable than not that Douglas Mudd has never had these specific coins in hand, and if he has seen the business documentation of Spink's then it should be Spink's who should be stating what they should have stated at the beginning of the case to import the coins to the US legally under the CCPIA. The fault here is the seller's. They are the only expert witness which matters here - and there was a chance to present that information at the beginning of the case.  Michael McCullough, Esq. will be aware that the fact that something leaves one country legally does not automatically qualify it for legal  entry into another. The US has a law which requires this category of artefact to have certain paperwork to enter the country legally. If it has not got that paperwork, not even a papal blessing will substitute for the missing documentation by US law. 

Reportedly  the pictures on this page are of the overcleaned pieces of junk are what the ACCG dealers bought at Spink's and so desperately want to import for their clients. I have written about them many times on this blog, for example here, here, here. What kind of dealer would want to keep company with other dealers who put things like this, without the proper covering paperwork to boot, in their stocks? |It would not bother cowboy dealers, but reputation-conscious dealers engaged in the ethical and legitimate antiquities trade? In any case, I ask again are all of those coins and coin-slugs we see in the pictures in fact what they purport to be? 

Maybe expert Douglas Mudd would like to run through these coins he claims to know so much about and tell us what he thinks each of them is...