Thursday 30 October 2014

More Careless Syrian Coin Listings in America



At an MOU hearing in Washington not long ago, Wayne Sayles clearly told the CPAC that he was not a dealer - as he had retired at the end of 2011 ( PACHI Wednesday, 21 March 2012, 'Sayles Suspends Sales'). This was after apparently discovering the previous year that he might be on some kind of HSI "watch list" ('Is ACCG Director on a watch list?', PACHI Saturday, 20 March 2010). Then he came back, without Mr Lavenderand started a new website. Until recently it was interesting to note that we did not find him on the V-Coins portal. Until now that is. Sayles is back, not only as a dealer, but as a V-coins seller:
Dear Friend in Numismatics: (yuk!) We are very pleased to rejoin the VCoins family of dealers as we celebrate our 50th year in professional numismatics. It's been a wonderful experience and our association with VCoins goes back many years—virtually to its beginning. We are presently building this new store to include offerings from our independent WGS web site and from our vast stock of ancient coins and related materials presently not offered online. 
The stock shown currently includes Artukid coins (from the present Turkey/Syria border area), a Byzantine coin struck in Homs (now a bombed out town) and other items from Syria, and quite a few from regions in and around modern Turkey (see 'ADCAEA Officer: "Boycott Turkish Antiquities"). Very few of them (and of those on the main WGS site) have much of a collecting history to speak of up front.Why is it that anyone putting up artefacts traceable to the war-torn regions of the Middle East precisely right now would not be going the extra mile to show that anyone who looks that they are of wholly licit provenance? Do coin dealers like Mr Sayles simply not care about the image they are projecting of their trade?

Please note, showing my readers what a dealer is doing is in no way an "endorsement" of the site, the portal, its proprietors or anything else to do with the opacities of the trade in dugup antiquities or the verbal chicanery of those involved in and supporting it (Cf 'Wayne Sayles: "Archaeologist Barford endorses WGS Store". Ummm, is that what I say?' Sunday, 25 November 2012  and also see: 'Intellectual landscapes and Honesty in the Coin Trade' Saturday, 1 December 2012).

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