Friday 29 January 2016

US Dealer Dodges the Question


Coin Week ('The Modern Hobby of Ancient Coins – A CoinWeek Exclusive with Harlan J. Berk', January 28, 2016 ) had a question to ancient coin dealer Harlan J. Berk:
it seems that the greatest threat to the hobby is the growing tide of legal and administrative restrictions on the collecting, importation, and trade in antiquities – usually in response to instability and warfare in different parts of the world. Is this reaction called for? How do collectors and dealers stay on the right side of the issue?
Look how Harlan Berk dodges to totally avoid answering the question ... Why would a dealer (in the business now fifty years) not want to give collectors advice how they can avoid artefacts illicitly coming onto the market from various countries of the world against a background of instability and warfare?

The collecting of artefacts like these would be made  modern only by abandoning the nineteenth century colonialist attitudes that underpins the no-questions-asked market. All we have depicted here is a dinosaur industry in denial piggy-backing on the Internet.

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