Thursday 23 February 2012

Would You Like an ACCG Member Living Next-Door to You?

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One of the ACCG bloggers asserts:
Antiquities collectors in European nations should not imagine that because they live outside US jurisdiction, the efforts of the ACCG [...] in the USA are not also vitally important to them. These efforts, although focused on coins, are the only concerted action presently being taken in defense of antiquities collectors' rights. Legal precedents that result may have importance to cases involving collecting and trading in all types of antiquities.
All over the world tens (maybe even hundreds) of thousands of people collect antiquities. Most of them do so by adhering to the law. As pointed out there is just ONE group and in just ONE country where collectors of such material consider themselves to be 'above the law'. They object to being asked to abide by a law of their own country in some of their dealings and respect the laws of the source countries. This they regard as some kind of infringement of what they see as "collectors' rights". These "rights" include free access to the trade in ancient artefacts dug up in and removed from other countries, irrespective of whether the activities involved are lawful. They support the import into the US of items from countries whose archaeological sites are threatened by pillage, without documentation of lawful export. On this account they depict themselves as some kind of altruistic freedom fighters. They are in fact nothing but an isolated group of whining agitators, shielding the trade in illicit artefacts and are doing the image of responsible portable antiquity collectors a great deal of harm. Like Nighthawks in the United Kingdom.

Would you let your kids play with the children of an ACCG member? Why would any responsible collector join the ACCG?
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