Coveting Others' Property

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When they are not maliciously sniping at fellow numismatists who raise the alarm about the damage done by the atavistic attitudes of the no-questions-asked antiquity collector, we have seen the coiney makes all sorts of excuses for what they do. All of this is aiming to deflect attention away from one simple fact, what they want to take is not theirs to take. They proclaim all laws and mores which stand in the way of them getting their hands on what they want as illogical, ill-conceived and in some way not applicable to them and what they want to take. Thus it is we learn the view of US coin collector Jorg ( "put the ethical argument aside") Lueke that the "pot hoards" containing the antiquities he would like to add to his personal hoard of geegaws

are usually not found in places excavated, based on the archaeological reports I have read coins when found are not often what anyone would consider treasure.

So up for grabs. This ignores the fact that more often than not, the cultural property laws of the place where these "pot hoards" and other coins are dug up do indeed "consider them as Treasure", and removing them to private possession is illegal, is theft. Not that such a thing would concern a selfish US collector of course.

Lueke considers that the coins dug out of archaeological sites which he dismissively calls "Roman junkers" are "ultra common" (in the soil of his OWN country, surely not) and thus

one wonders if they can really be considered cultural property at all.

But they are, aren't they? In the law of the source countries they, like any archaeological find, are considered to be cultural property - a view to which the citizens of those countries are perfectly entitled (as embodied in, among other places, Article 1 of the 1970 UNESCO Convention), whether or not the US collector thinks it is "fair" to foreign would-be collectors. The collector assures us that he would "look after" at home such coins as "certainly wouldn't be found in any museum", whether or not the laws of the country they come from allow that or not. It does not concern the self-centred foreign collector that removing such items from the archaeological record to private possession is illegal, is theft. Not that such a thing would concern a US collector of course.

Where do such attitudes of entitlement to the property of others come from? When is theft not theft? I am sure many common thieves can come up with excuses as good as any coiney why they steal. The two do not really seem so far apart do they? Who'd feel comfortable however attempting to be an advocate for tolerating culture theft in a state where criminal court cases can be checked online? After all, somebody could do a search for such people who may (or may not) already be on a Gubn'mint watch-list, and find that it is public record that somebody with that same Christian and surname apparently has a 1994 conviction for theft (Case No. 55-K1-94-001769, it does not say what of, but a guilty plea apparently warranted a sentence of ten months so it was not a packet of fags).

Coincidence, no doubt, a case of mistaken identity perhaps. Nevertheless it seems to me that those individuals who indulge in trying to trash the reputations of fellow (though academically better qualified) coin scholars ought to watch out in which direction they are hurling their mud and rocks, lest they find themselves getting injured by flying glass.

Vignette: Glass houses.

The Serbian Connection: The Art World Does Deals with "All-Singing, All-Dancing Criminals"

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It emerges from an Art Newspaper article today that quite a few stolen art works from Western European collections are turning up in southeastern Europe. There seems to be an international network of connections between organized criminal groups in the Balkans along which illicitly obtained artworks and antiques (the Ashton Keynes lecturn) - and I would not mind betting antiquities - are moving. This article highlights one section of the activity, the Serbian connection.

European art recovery experts are increasingly concentrating on developing their businesses in the Balkans to track down stolen works of art circulating in the region’s criminal networks. Dick Ellis, the former head of the Metro­politan Police Art & Antiques Unit has, with four Serbians, including businessmen and private investigators, set up "Art Management", a specialist art recovery firm to focus on the Balkan region.

We understand that, in addition to Ellis’ firm, at least two other private investigators are active in the region, while the Art Loss Register (ALR) has launched a campaign targeting Balkan criminals. The ALR, whose representatives made around eight trips to the region last year, presented a briefing document at a conference in Barcelona last October, setting out options for recovery in a notoriously difficult region.

Since the break-up of Yugoslavia and the subsequent war, the authorities have largely focused on hunting war criminals and combating drug trafficking. However, the region has become an important transit point for art stolen from France, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, the former Czechoslo­vakia, Hol­land and Belgium by well-known gangs including the “Balkan Bandits” and the “Pink Panthers”. While Serbia is the main base for the gangs, many of the stolen works are emerging in surrounding Macedonia, Kosovo and Montenegro. Charlie Hill, another former Met Police detective, says that, despite the silly names, “these … are all-singing, all-dancing criminals. The problem with art crime in the Balkans is that it’s a fascinating nightmare—the crim­inals are a nightmare but the art turning up is fascinating.”

The rest of the Art Newspaper article discusses the ethical issues involved in paying ransoms to recover stolen artworks.

[The Serbian Connection, orange areas where art is stolen from, green, where it is ending up.

Who in the antiquities trade sells antiquities of likely Serbian, Montenegran, Kosovan and
Makedonian origins and where do they come from?]

Riah Pryor. 'Balkans targeted in hunt for stolen art', The Art Newspaper January 19, 2012.

Donna Bowater, 'Brass lectern stolen from Wiltshire church turns up at Romanian antique fair' Telegraph 08 Jan 2012 (Ornate brass lectern stolen from a church in Ashton Keynes in Wiltshire worth around £2,000 found on sale in Romania)

Moan, Moan, Whinge, Whinge... "Ya' Lost the Coiney Vote Obama..."

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Moan, moan, whinge, whinge that's all coineys seem to do these days faced with the prospect that there is political resistance to the open trade in illicitly exported dugup artefacts in the USA. But they threaten to fight back:

Hopefully, then someone in the Obama White House political operation will realize there is a problem at CPAC and the State Department that is threatening to turn ancient coin collectors (most of whom are likely Democrats) against President Obama's reelection bid. Can the President's appointees really afford to alienate at least 50,000 serious ancient coin collectors and the hundreds of small businesses of the numismatic trade [...]?

They are most likely WHAT? Ha ha haa... That certainly is not the impression I get from reading what the loudest of them write. Glenn Beck clones to a man.

Anyway, was not the fashion for the coin-controlling MOUs started under the previous guy? Were not many of those until recently in the CPAC appointed by and serving under the 'Publican President?

The only coin collectors and dealers who consider the State Department a "threat" are those dumb enough to believe the ACCG crap without checking that what the MOUs refer to are illicitly exported artefacts. The only coin collectors "threatened" by the CPAC and CCPIA are those who could not care less whether the dugup coins they buy are licitly brought to the market, or illicitly exported. People like that probably do not vote anyway, and if they did it's sure as my name is not Jane that it'd not be for the Democrats.

A government that helps protect threatened resources will get the vote of the decent folk, and those are the ones that count. What party wants the stigma of attracting the redneck ruffian vote?

Coiney Prophets of Doom and Gloom

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The world looks different from inside a coin collector's mind. Over on the (closed access, you have to register or know a computer hacker to see it) the signing of an US-Greece cultural property agreement is being pictured by the doomandgloom mongers as a terrible Sword of Damocles which will bring awful tribulations upon the nation and lead to the downfall of the Obama government. Jorg Lueke started it:

Between the recent arrests and the increased number of MOU's including coins causing more and more dealers to avoid bringing coins into US, the marketplace seems posied for a change.

He predicts that the demand will not diminish which means that "the increased risks will be taken by less scruplous and law abiding dealers increasing prices". Oh dear, so coins will no longer be imported with the customs declarations saying "ancient coins from Greece, value $5200", but "painted wooden box value $3,00"? Well, we know where that is likely to lead don't we? So the exclusion of coins illegally exported from Greece and Italy may lead to shortages on the market (really?) but then if that is compensated for by the future jailing of cheating dealers misrepresenting items on customs declarations, then an equilibrium will be reached, n'est ce pas?

ACCG's paid mouthpiece John Hooker concurs. He reckons that if coins are included among the items whose import will be restricted pending proof of legal export:

about the only certainty is that the illicit search for coin hoards in source countries will increase exponentially. Merely smuggling European coin dealer's stock would not give the needed profit to risk ratio.

That is the sort of statement that only looks logical after more than a few beers and being a coin collector. The rest of us might have trouble following the argument. Why on earth would legitimate stock from other European countries have to be "smuggled" into the US to make the coins saleable? It is notable that to neither of these gentlemen has occurred the option that US coin dealers could stop (I'm sure they'd prefer me to say "not start") importing smuggled coins illegally exported from the source countries. Like Lueke, Mr Hooker also sees a Darwinian resolution to the problem.

Larger honest U.S. dealers would simply move out of the country and compete in the European market.

But warns darkly: "The main loser would be Greece". That remark remains unexplained. He then adds:

I dare say that the most dedicated of U.S. Greek coin collectors would move elsewhere as Greek coins in the U.S. would become expensive while the loss of the U.S. market to European dealers should reduce the prices in Europe -- then, a larger volume of sales would be required.

Good grief, collecting Greek coins sounds almost like an affliction like drug abuse ("can't getta fix here, gotta move house to go where I can"). Then another disconnected dark warning of what will ensue:

Restrictions of any sort are always good news for organized crime -- history has confirmed this. Interesting times might be ahead.

Funnily enough some of us connect the illicit transport of illicitly obtained items with organized crime. Cleaning up the market will make this trade more difficult for criminal gangs.

Perhaps buying coins from criminals is what Lueke and Hooker see as driving prices up. There is no other reason for it, all the CCPIA requires is a piece of paper to accompany coin imports of certain types from certain places. Why should a piece of paper cost more than a piece of paper costs? And is that extra cost not worth it for the peace of mind that a responsible collector has legally acquired coins in their collection?

But it gets worse. Hooker (a Canadian resident) says this is going to bring down the US government. Yessiree. You see:

With a 70% public disapproval rate for the MOU including coins[...] it would be somewhat risky for the Obama administration to do so -- it gives a strong message that the people's wishes are being ignored -- I dare say a number of politicians will jump on this in the next election.

Well, a few thousand coin fondling US citizens conducted a fax-bombing campaign to show they wanted to continue collecting dugup archaeological artefacts without worrying about where they came from and whether or not they were legally exported. Yet 163 million US citizens did not support them. And that is going to lose Obama votes? I suppose to anyone who'd see moving to another country to be able to collect coins of a particular type as the actions of a rational man, might well indeed believe that the US electorate gives a hoot about their geekish coin fondling hobby. Especially as they all shut themselves off from interaction with the real world by closing public access to their discussion forums and blogs. That really does make it look as if behind the public façade, they have a great deal to hide. Oh yessiree.


Vignette: Harold Camping, prophet of doom.

Dotty Database of Dodgy Dugups

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A few weeks ago and quite out of the blue London archaeologist Dorothy King (aka PhDiva) announced something which seems to me to be extraordinarily rash:

Looting: Egypt, Libya, The Medici Archive etc: I've been working on a database of looted and potentially looted archaeological material, because none seem to exist and after the problems earlier this year in Egypt, and the potential issues in Libya [...] one is badly needed.

Let's come back to that - particularly with regard whether this one is needed. Dr King's rationale for hers is:

Initial conversations seem to be ... well everyone's getting political, and frankly is 'sitting' on their own material without sharing it, which kinda defeats the purpose of having photos as they are not doing any good if others don't know about them. I've dropped a few people emails as a courtesy to let them know I'm starting to put in Freedom of Information requests to get access to the photographs.

"Initial conversations" with whom? Obviously setting up something of this magnitude requires a considerable amount of planning and wider consultation, so who has been involved in this? Well of course, heritage is indeed an intensely political issue, why should it not be?

I suspect the reference to "people" "sitting" on material refers to that long-going collectors' whine about the Medici (etc.) archives. These archives allow antiquities-market-watchdogs to reveal that items coming onto the market at this or that sale in fact "look awfully like" a polaroid of something that in a dirtier state passed through the hands of specific dealers which suggests that they are 'tainted' goods. Collectors, dealers and their advocates accuse such public-spirited individuals as "playing gottcha" and it looks to me very much like Dr King is playing along with these supporters of the no-questions-asked market. For what reason, only she can tell.

So she's going to be submitting Freedom of Information requests to whom, precisely? She might have a problem for example with Italy, Israel, Greece (there is a nice Wikipedia article that gives a brief summary of FOI legislation across the world) though the Swiss legislation is not mentioned there. Also in some countries the legislation only applies to citizens of that country. The information is not supplied free of charge in all cases, Dr King will have to pay for copies of documents and photographs from countries like Greece - who is meeting these costs with her? If at some stage Dr King attempts to recoup some of the costs by making her database available only by subscription, then there are problems with making information taken from public records available for commercial gain. Are all of the institutions which hold data on objects (which for example contain information on ownership - so personal data - as well as ongoing criminal investigations) obliged to share this with a lone British archaeologist out on an undefined personal mission? One which in addition could threaten to undermine certain ongoing investigations of people involved in teh trade of the items shown on the photos she seeks?

One serious drawback for this enterprise is (as I have mentioned here before) that at least some of the material withheld from public view is evidence in ongoing criminal investigations and judicial processes. It is hard to imagine Dr King getting her hands on all of that (or the problems that could arise if she did).

It seems to me Dr King has not really identified the legal issues involved. True enough she notes:

Another issue is not to defame so, for example, I'm looking at getting a strong disclaimer prominently framed. For example: Polaroids of items that passed through Giacomo Medici; many items he handled were looted, but not all were and one wouldn't want to besmirch innocent collectors.

Eh? I suspect we have different ideas about what "innocence" means here, King seems to equate ignorance with innocence. I think a collector buying this sort of stuff needs to control where it is coming from or not buy. This collector - if they are careful enough in verifying that information - will not be caught with looted stuff on their hands. Those who are not careful enough most likely will - but that is not "innocence", it is wilful ignorance.

So, if I understand Ms King correctly, this DKLM (Database of Known Looted Material as another blogger called it) will have some photos of objects which may or may not be looted. What's the point of that? So a collector who bought no-questions-asked a Greek vase for the living room and paid x00 000 green ones for it, when she wants to redecorate and get the cash back, finds she cannot because some Dorothy King has made a public archive available on the Internet in which is a picture that looks awfully like their vase and it says its "looted" - making the only person who'll take it an ebay dealer for a two day private auction starting at $9.99. What are they going to do? I suppose it depends who their contacts are. They might know Doug and Dinsdale Piranha, who might go and have a word with Ms King (always a danger in this line of work). They might employ IT specialists to launch a DOS attack on Ms King's servers until they've sold it on, they might sue her - despite her "disclaimer". I'd say that if she gets this up and running, Ms King is going to be stepping on a lot of toes of people involved in a very lucrative business, some of whom potentially have a wide range of contacts ranging from those with contacts in the criminal underworld to those with contacts in the judicial world and government circles (not only across the northern hemisphere).

The opposite also applies, a wealthy collector fancies a Greek vase for the bathroom, sees one in an auction, checks it out on the DKLM database, does not find it, buys it. Ten years later they find it has become known that it was figured in a part of the Medici archive DK had not put on her database and the vase is unsaleable. Again, I think they and their lawyers might think (depending how the disclaimer is phrased and the resource presented) they'd have grounds for court action, or sending Doug and Dinsdale round to her mews flat.

Alternatively, since she seems to be thinking of some kind of interactive format, dealer A might post up a few pictures of something dealer B has just snatched from under his nose to render it unsaleable - whether or not it actually is looted or not. Then dealer B has a word with Ms King and her lawyers.

Ms King has provided an update on further developments (Tuesday, July 5, 2011 Database: the story so far ...):

Another issue has become the cut-off date for items to include as looted. Most scholars work with 1970 UNESCO as the date, although technically that should be whenever the country in question ratified the Convention.

well, no, technically the date when items illegally removed from the archaeological record become so is the date when legislation was introduced in the source country making it so. The UNESCO Convention merely provides a bridge allowing the international recognition of those local laws and instituting a means of respecting them internationally. It also is concerned with "the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Cultural Property" and not looting itself. This is a common misunderstanding of its scope. Ms King continues:

I don't want someone trying to load up photos of the Elgin Marbles but I find it frustrating on the other hand that recent prosecutions in Italy failed less because of innocence than the statute of limitations running out. I've also taken the decision to go back to the '30s to include potential Holocaust Era claims. That may be controversial, but since we do it with paintings we should also with Antiquities.

Well, if she is "going back" forty years before the 1970 cutoff date, why not the Parthenon (please not Elgin) Marbles and the Dendera ceiling? Because they are not Jewish? What is this nonsense about Holocaust archaeological material? Archaeological remains of the Holocaust (like suitcases, photos and shoes in the Auschwitz museum)?

So, Washington DC dealer Sands of Time is offering items from the Paul Ilton ("the Bible was my Treasure Map") collection of archaeological finds removed from the Holy Land in the 1930s (like many others) when it was the British Mandate, would they therefore deserve a place on the DKLM? I think such an approach could cause Ms King and her collaborators a lot of headaches, as not all states had antiquity preservation laws covering these issues in the 1930s.

It seems to me that Ms King is trying to overlap with the work being done by others. Over in central Europe, countries like Poland and Latvia, government agencies have created such national databases which are accessible in both paper form and online. They cover losses during the Second World War and thefts from collections, monuments, and where the missing material consists of archaeological finds they are included. Egypt has created a database of material missing from museums and storerooms, which is being made available to (and through?) Interpol. There is the Art Loss Register and other databases of this type (including one for coins). The Jewish Claims Commission is just one of the organizations active in the recovery of "Holocaust objects". What liaison and overlap would there be between the DKLM and the databases of these other existing organizations?

The fault of all of these and Ms King's proposed future one, is that looting is a clandestine activity, done for the most part by silent people with metal detectors and spades out in remote locations, sometimes at night. Some looting groups are armed to make sure their activities are not reported. The only person who knows what these individuals have dug up and taken away are the middlemen who buy the products of this criminal activity from them to sell on. A database of "known looted items" is pretty pointless as a weapon to fight the trade in looted material. A few dealers have been caught with archives of things they have handled in their offices. Other dodgy dealers have been caught who kept no such records. Other dodgy dealers have not ever been investigated. The amount of looted objects known through databases of one type or another is miniscule compared with the number of items "surfacing" (from underground) on the market annually with no record whatsoever of where they were before that. This is the problem that needs to be dealt with.

The Dorothy King Looted Material Database is going to be very big. There are tens of thousands of items from one dealer operating from one warehouse complex alone, it is easy to see that if it is to have any pretensions to adequate coverage and gets all the material Ms King is seeking, the DKLM will soon reach the proportions of the PAS database. This raises the question of how it will be possible to search it, the structure of the database has to be thought out very carefully, perhaps Ms King is already in contact with the PAS to hear what they have to say after all their experiences with this problem. Another source of information perhaps more suitable to the scale of ms King's proposed operation would be the UK Detector Finds Database (UKDFD). This protocol needs to be consulted and in place obviously before the database can take shape.

A more fundamental question however (and obviously relevant to how it is going to be used) is for whose benefit Ms King's database is being created. On the one hand, its potential immense size would make it a wonderful weapon to use against the no-questions-asked market, making the scale of the depredation (and the quality of items/information lost) immediately and very visually clear. This would be something public opinion simply could not ignore. It will also make the archives of looted items available to many many more "gottcha" eyes and a lot more museums and collectors are going to find themselves in embarrassing positions over items they have purchased than they would when there was only a handful of specialists involved in checking these items. On the other hand, I wonder if law enforcement (for example) would use her database in preference to their own resources from which (if I understand DK correctly) her own would be compiled. It seems to me the primary beneficiaries would be dodgy dealers and careless collectors who will be able to see if an item in their hands is in the database or not, thus deciding what they will do with it - whether to send it to Sotheby's or ebay or do some private behind the scenes deal with it. But when it comes down to it "not on the DKLM" is not a guarantor of licit origins. So what is this database for, and for whom?

None of these topics of course can be discussed with the author of the concept as following the links given in this post will reveal she has closed her blog to viewers.

UPDATE 10th June 2011: The 'PhDiva' blog is now (currently) accessible to all and sundry again.

Vignette: PhDiva

Alderman on Antiquities and Organized Crime

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There is a brief presentation on the ARCA blog of Kimberly Alderman’s views on the relationship between the illicit antiquities trade and organized crime as presented in the San Francisco session last week (‘ARCA Student Kim Alderman Presents "Honor Amongst Thieves"‘). She agrees with the interviewer Catherine Schofield Sezgin that “organized crime is involved in the illicit antiquities trade”, but “if you are talking only about mobsters or the mafia, then there is less evidence to support the alleged connection”, though admitting that “there has certainly been increasingly organized subversion in the illicit antiquities trade since then, although whether the 1960s served as a temporal starting point for such organization remains to be seen”. Answering a question, she says: “Claims that the illicit antiquities trade is connected with money laundering, extortion, the drug and arms trades, terrorism, and slavery, should be taken individually”. There are discrete instances of this which she argues “serve as indicators of a potential connection – not hard evidence”.

I think several more complex arguments have become conflated into a brief presentation here. The interviewer was facing Alderman with a question whether the whole illicit antiquities trade since the early 1960s had been “fuelled by organized crime”. That obviously is a singularly unhelpful question, and of course the answer is no. Much of the minor antiquities trade which is the staple of the industry today is clearly a private initiative of individuals.

I think that in general, we do not differentiate different (but probably overlapping) sectors of this trade enough both in terms of scope and mechanisms. I also feel very strongly that the antiquities trade of 2010 is absolutely nothing like that of the 1960s (or 1970s when the UNESCO Convention was written which makes the latter as much use as chocolate fire doors).

I really am unclear where the date “1960” comes from, it seems to me that the conditions for the present criminal trade of antiquities came into being with internet trading (and money transfer) from the mid 1990s. The fall of social systems and the rise of organized crime in much of eastern Europe from 1989 was a major feature in the digging up and smuggling of vast amounts of material from eastern Europe (the classic example is Bulgaria on which an entire system of trade has been built in the US coin and minor antiquities market with nothing being done by US authorities to stop it). The same thing happened with the drug trade when the traditional trade routes from the Near East to Europe were disrupted by the wars in former Yugoslavia. There are also trends, in the 1990s the Russian (and Belorussian and Ukranian) organized criminal groups were moving large numbers of illicitly-exported icons and other artworks west. Today that trade has to some extent dried up (at least as seen on the Polish border) but dugup minor antiquities from both Crimean and northwest "Russian" sources (I am thinking here of metalwork obviously plundered from burial mounds and cemeteries in the Ladoga region - sold as "Viking") are moving west in increasing numbers. The link with organized criminal groups able to ensure their illegal export seems in many cases likely.

More to the point, surely it matters not whether the whole trade is in the hands of organized crime or “just” a percentage of it. In order for responsible dealers and collectors becoming part of the network of distribution, differentiating the dodgy stuff from the more licit stuff means that (unless the pollution of the market does not induce them to give up buying totally on ethical grounds) collectors should be exercising far more caution than it seems they are at present, thus forcing the dealers to do so too.

Vignette: Mobsters.

Not Doing So Well Yourselves, Need Help?

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I was interested in Larry Rothfeld's comment to the SAFE Corner article discussed in the post above this:

This is a hopeful development. Certainly it would be a great advancement if archaeologists could be trained to gather evidence of looting that would actually be of use to bring looters to justice. The sad fact buried in the story, however, is that archaeologists are being "deputized" because there are only three historic preservation officers responsible for policing three million acres.

The United States (at least according to its coin collectors) has a very paternalistic not to say colonial attitude to other people's efforts to protect their cultural property from looting and illegal export. US dealers and collectors and their lawyers insist that the USA reserves the right to refuse to help a fellow member state of the 1970 UNESCO Convention if the later cannot satisfy the US that it is taking the "right" (in the arbitrary eyes of the US alone) steps to protect its cultural heritage. One might wonder by what right the USA assumes the mantle of world police in this regard when it is reported that there are reports of looting of archaeological sites in one national park almost monthly, every day protected archaeological sites are being looted (while other sites are unprotected totally) and that there are not enough people to police areas rich in archaeology like the Wayne national Forest and many other areas of the United States.

US collectors insist that setting up new legislation like the British Treasure Act and a concurrent Portable Antiquities Scheme would solve problems of site preservation and dealing with the illicit market in other countries. Would it solve America's problems of site preservation and dealing with the illicit market? It is odd that we hear virtually nothing from the coiney "collectors' rights" crowd on exploring this topic. Why not?
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American Numismatic Association Asks Members to Support Illegal Export of Antiquities

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Rather late in the day (September 20, 2010) the American Numismatic Association has issued a panic-stricken "Important Message Regarding Proposed Import Restrictions on Greek Numismatic Material" addressed to its members. Let's take a look at this text:

The numismatic community needs your help. The government of Greece has requested in a proposed Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that the United States restrict importation of "Greek cultural artifacts from the Neolithic period until the mid-18th century"...

(in accordance with the measures laid down by the CCPIA) to those which are accompanied by documentation of legal export.

Coins will likely be included in the restricted list of objects.

Well, although that is what the ANA document says in its title, actually nobody knows this. That depends whether the Greek government requested it or not. That is up to them.

Countless collector coins, from ancient to early modern, could be at stake.

Only if they are illegally exported from Greece, if the CCPIA is applied in this case, legally exported coins will pass through US borders normally, just as in the case of artefacts from the countries with which the US already has an MOU about imports, the collectors of which do not kick up any fuss at all, but simply buy items legally imported.

This request follows a proposed Italian MOU (which did not request coins be included - PMB), other countries [may be] waiting with similar requests, should the present one be approved.

The US is indeed a major no-questions-asked market for ancient artefacts from all over the ancient world. So I would not be surprised. Looking at what has passed through the US market over the past decade or so, Bulgaria for example should have requested this years ago.

Disregarding the fact that the vast majority of its members collect coins as geegaws or even (as a non-renewable resource for which there is a growing demand) investments, the 'avocational home-grown scholar' argument is then trundled out:

Numismatic researchers may be adversely affected as well, as they will have to depend on museum coin collections, which often involve numerous expenses.

Buying ancient coins exported from the source countries all over the ancient world also involves numerous expenses, does it not? The ancient coins being offered for sale to collectors on the ACCG President's V-Coins website today (109,867 items) are listed as worth USD 20,425,020(twenty million dollars), and of course very few of them are being offered with any sort of documentation upfront showing where they "surfaced" from.

The ANA then goes on to boast reassuringly that whatever the Italian government and people and the citizens of the US may think about trade in illegally exported items:

Thanks to the response from the ANA and other organizations, there are signs that coins may have been exempted from the Italian MOU.

Rubbish, they were not included because they'd not been included in the Italian government's request, not due to any fax-bombing or other activities of the ANA or ACCG or the coin dealers and their clients.

The ANA notes that there are a lot of citizens concerned enough about the US market being the recipient of illegally exported artefact that they are writing about it:

However, the alarming majority of comments in regards to the Greek MOU are in favor of import restrictions. Ancient Coin Collectors Guild Executive Director Wayne G. Sayles is concerned. "The situation is grave, and the actions of today set precedents for actions of the future,” he said. “We cannot afford to be complacent." The responsibility to shift the balance is on us.

Now why can US collectors of dugup artefacts not afford to be "complacent" when public opinion urges the US government to do something about the import of illegally exported archaeological artefacts? If the US trade in ancient artefacts such as coins had nothing to hide, then it is difficult to see where dealers and collectors have issues with the attempt to curb import of illegally exported artefacts. Wayne Sayles himself assures the CPAC that the quantity of ancient coins on the US market is low: "I would not think it to be more than few percent". So what is the problem? The import restrictions will stop a few percent of the coins which foreign criminals have attempted to slip on to the US market reaching unsuspecting buyers. I really do not see any real explanation by "respectable" coin dealers why they find this to actually pose them a problem.

Surely if the US market was as legitimate as the supporters of its current no-questions-asked form claim, the US collector would trust that it has every reason to be complacent. If what their lobbyists say were true, restrictions on illegally exported coins would not affect them at all. The fact that so many of them are writing to protest measures intended to curb the flow of looted items seems to me indicative that they are all aware that the argument of the lobbyists are in fact bare-faced lies.

If it is true that the "majority of comments in regards to the Greek MOU are in favour of restricting import of illegally exported artefacts" the only cause for alarm should be that alone among all the collectors of Greek arterfacts (pottery, swords and armour, statuary) and other material (icons for excample), it is only the Philistine collectors of dug-up coins which are going in the face of public opinion. If I were a collector of such material, I might wonder whether the hobby is being led in the right direction by manipulative idiots who consider that the only way to react, instead of cleaning up the hobby, is to try and "shift the balance" of public opinion by a show of solidarity in favour of the continuation of the unregulated passage of illegally exported archaeological artefacts across US borders.

I can only echo the ANA's recommendations:

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Buying and Selling Tainted Antiquities

Marc Fehlmann commented "I totally agree that the main objective should be to protect the sites. Making tainted antiquities "unsalable" may be a solution and it surely is an admirable goal". The problem with making laws work is of course, he admits, "individual greed" in the face of the existence of a market currently perfectly willing to buy any number of less-than-legally-acquired artefacts no-questions-asked. While museums and certain large dealers now may be trending towards more ethical acquisition policies, it is "the trade of tainted antiquities in private hands" which is the problem with which "national laws and international agreements are not enough to stop".

International drug trafficking organizations have never respected nor accepted national boundaries or laws. So why should those trafficking antiquities be any different?

This highlights the basic problem, in a secretive trade permeated by illegally obtained artefacts, the potential of suppliers dealing with criminal elements is obviously very high. Certainly high enough to make this a problem that nobody buying antiquities these days should ignore. But they do.