Professional Numismatist Publishes Lord Renfrew's Coin Collection

Lord Renfrew, a vocal critic of the antiquities trade, has graciously allowed his collection of Etruscan coins to be published in Italo Vecchi�s impressive new corpus. The work publishes thousands of specimens from private and public collections and includes many coins that cannot be traced back to the 1970 date favored by archaeologists and some museums.

In supporting this endeavor, Lord Renfrew has demonstrated a commitment to scholarship shared by many collectors and,  indeed, professional numismatists like Italo Vecchi.

Richard Doty, Smithsonian Curator and Collector, Passes Away

Coins Weekly has reported on the passing of Richard Doty, the senior numismatic curator at the Smithsonian Institution.  The well-deserved tributes will focus on Dr. Doty's scholarship, but I also think it's worth noting that Dr. Doty was also a fixture at coin shows in the Washington, D.C. area.  Like his predecessor, Elvira Clain-Stefanelli, Dr. Doty was both a scholar and a collector. I'm sure he will be much missed.

Far Away from the Archaeo-Blogosphere...

I enjoyed accompanying another collector who spoke to two classes of 7th and 8th Graders about ancient coins and what they can tell us about ancient societies.   Teaching about ancient history is woefully inadequate in our nation's classrooms, so it was great to find a school where the classics are still king and where the kids were both knowledgeable and engaged in the subject matter.

All this raises another point that does directly touch on "cultural property" issues.  The Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) spends $500 million a year promoting "cultural understanding."  But, I can't help but think that ancient coin collectors do the same thing every time they talk to a class, discuss ancient history and coins, or interact with foreign collectors and dealers, and all at no cost to the U.S. taxpayer.  

One can only wonder if Assistant Secretary, ECA Ann Stock has any clue about the negative impact the actions of her Cultural Heritage Center have had on coin collectors and the good work they do promoting cultural understanding on a people to people basis.   If it's really about protecting archaeological sites rather than encouraging jingoistic nationalism, why promote-- as ECA's Cultural Heritage Center has done-- import restrictions based on a coin's place of production rather than it's find spot?

Ideology, Governance and Consequences from a Collector's Point of View

The Council of British Archaeology has published Wayne Sayles' and Dave Welsh's 2010 paper on the Internet.  While critical of some archaeologists, Sayles and Welsh ultimately believe that cooperation between the groups is what is needed.

Cultural Heritage Center Website Updated

The Cultural Heritage Center's website has been spiffed up with pictures, including one of Hillary Clinton gazing at a Greek statute.  Unfortunately, the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs' tag line "promoting mutual understanding" rings hollow for ancient coin collectors at least.  Indeed, ECA's controversial import restrictions on millions of ancient Greek, Roman and Chinese coins of the sort avidly collected world-wide has, if anything, greatly harmed people to people contacts between collectors in the US and foreign countries.  Why not promote ancient coin collecting, and the cultural understanding it fosters (at no cost to the U.S. taxpayer), rather than seek to suppress it to the benefit of no one but a small number of academic archaeologists and their patrons in foreign cultural bureaucracies?

More Coins Return to ANS

"Culture Grrl" has additional coverage about more Huntington coins being �repatriated� back to the ANS due to the generosity of a donor.  More good news for the ANS. 

ANS Recaptures Part of HSA Collection

Lee Rosenbaum (aka "Culture Grrl") reports the welcome news that a generous donor has agreed to return some 10,000 coins from the Hispanic Society of America collection back to the American Numismatic Society, where they resided for so many years.

Update (6-20-12):  The New York times has now reported on the generous contribution as well. 

Hillary More Attuned to Pop Culture than to Concerns of Numismatic Community?

I had to laugh a bit when I read that Hillary Clinton (or her staff) had time to write Jason Segal, a Hollywood personality, to decline an invitation to appear on his television show.  See http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/hillary-clinton-writes-jason-segel-rejection-letter-318512

In contrast, Secretary Clinton has declined to respond at all to correspondence expressing the sincere concerns of the numismatic community about how import restrictions are damaging small business and the appreciation and study of ancient coins in the United States.

What gives?

The Future of the Past - Collecting Ancient Art in the 21st Century

The transcript of the program, The Future of the Past - Collecting Ancient Art in the 21st Century, has been posted here:  http://www.cprinst.org/lecture-services/the-future-of-the-past---collecting-ancient-art-in-the-21st-century

The program sponsored by The Asia Society and the American Committee for Cultural Policy largely focuses on Asian Art, but in so doing, raises serious concerns about how the United States Department of State and US Customs makes and enforces import restrictions on cultural goods.  Kate Fitz Gibbon, a former CPAC member who now practices as an attorney in New Mexico, set the tone of the event:
 
We had recently very dramatic, highly publicized raids of California museums accusing them back in 2008 of accepting donations of so-called stolen art from Thailand. These made the front pages for weeks, though it later turned out that bad law and bad facts resulted in a lot of dropped cases.
 
Other cases that never make the paper come as unpleasant surprise to ordinary folks. An elderly lady from Los Angeles puts some ceramics that she bought at a flea market up for sale on the internet, and then finds four Homeland Security agents on her doorstep. They have a letter from the Minister of Culture of Mali claiming her artifacts were stolen.

A probate lawyer in Albuquerque calls US Customs when he discovers some Pre-Columbian art in an estate. "Any problem?" He asks. "No problem," they say, "it's all stolen. Agents will be by to collect it."

These kinds of actions don�t reach the papers. Most of the time the people involved don�t even realize they have been the victim of a misinformed or overzealous agent, but if we allow a declaration of blanket ownership by a source country to trigger a violation of our National Stolen Property Act, and we assume that lack of documentation is proof of guilt, then we have an end to art collecting, sooner rather than later.

When art becomes stolen through an administrative declaration, a flourish of the pen, then all art collecting is at risk. This applies not only to antiquities but to the myriad of other objects that are claimed as national cultural heritage in many countries: photographs, paintings, sculpture, documents, coins, textiles and costumes.  We'll be hearing later today about the Association of Art Museum Directors' decision not to purchase or accept for donation artworks that cannot be proven to have come into the United States before 1970. To my mind this rule is a self-administered slow poison, completely illogical and not required under any law.

There are already hundreds of thousands of objects, mostly minor, that cannot be donated under these rules. In another ten years, there will be many thousands more as owners pass away.

If art collecting is no longer honored, then the benefits to institutions of art collecting will end. If institutions aren't exciting places for collectors, collectors will stop supporting institutions. Archeology, which is supported by this enthusiasm and by the museum system, will suffer in turn.


This should be sobering stuff for anyone interested in the preservation of the past.

"Coiney 2012"

This is from the Philadelphia Enquirer April 1, 2012:

COINEY 2012: A Video Hit that Misses?

By April Fells

The archaeological advocacy group Saving Antiquities from Everyone (�SAFRE�) has joined with the archaeological advocacy website �Chasing Afrodite� to promote a video to publicize the evils of ancient coin collecting to a wider audience of young adults.

But a cyclone of controversy is swirling around Coiney 2012, a video by SAFRE members Dr. Nathan Snikel and Gill Barmore. The video that targets ancient coin collectors or �Coineys� has gotten more than 76 million views on YouTube since it was posted March 5.

Some say that Snikel and Barmore are a bunch of self-promoting, overprivileged young adults, others that they are brilliant filmmaker/advocates who know how to use new-media tools to grab the attention of high school and college students.

Actually, they are both, and Coiney 2012 embodies all the potential - and pitfalls - of high-tech advocacy.

Ancient coin collecting used to be known as a somewhat nerdy pastime for middle age and older men interested in ancient history. Then, SAFRE began arguing that ancient coin collecting encouraged the looting of archaeological sites by metal detectorists with ties to the mafia or terrorist groups. First, no one took such claims seriously, but then in 2007 SAFRE�s efforts gained a boost when Cypriot advocacy groups, which had hoped to get the US to agree to side with Greeks over the Turkish enemy on questions related to the division of Cyprus, instead got as a booby prize the commitment of then Undersecretary of State Nicholas Beans to order import restrictions on ancient coins, despite the views of State�s own advisory committee. No one could actually figure how this then became a cornerstone of US foreign policy, but since that time, SAFRE has allegedly worked hand in hand with SAFRE members embedded in the State Department Cultural Hermitage Center to extend import restrictions first imposed on coins from Cyprus, to ancient coins from Italy, Greece and China. Coins from Albania, Bulgaria and the rest of the alphabet are now set for new restrictions every other month.

Both the video and the Coiney 2012 campaign seek to raise awareness and to press the U.S. government to keep up the import restrictions on coin collectors or �Coineys� as the campaign wants them officially designated. Visitors to the Coiney 2012 website (www.coiney2012.com) can sign a �call to de-coin the Coineys,� donate US coins, get an advocacy kit, or, by clicking share, post a link to their Facebook page.

The edgy, half-hour video appeals to those called millennials, or Generation Y, those born approximately between 1980 and 2000. Filmmaker and narrator Snikel begins Coiney 2012 by asserting a new world order created by Facebook, YouTube, and other social network sites: "There are more people on Facebook than there were on the planet 200 years ago. Humanity's greatest desire is to belong and connect. . . . And this connection is changing the way the world works."

It's about being cool. If a friend doesn't know about Coineys at this point, Snikel says, "you automatically think they're an idiot."

Criticism - and there has been a lot - has targeted the video's approach and accuracy, and SAFRE�s finances. The group raises millions yearly and spends much of it on filmmaking, travel and some great beer and �Legalize pot� parties.

The effort has also received criticism abroad, from �Coineys� in other countries. Italian coin collectors are the fiercest critics of all, claiming the group profits from Italy�s troubles, displays a colonialist attitude in its work, and fails to mention the Italian cultural bureaucracy cannot even take care of cultural treasures like Pompeii - charges SAFRE has hotly disputed.

There's another problem: If all these young people do is watch and share the video, then Coiney 2012 is not much more than "slacktivism," Net-based pseudo-activism that's little more than clicking computer keys. SAFRE and Chasing Afrodite have planned activities beyond the video, but the video's getting all the attention.

Moreover, there have been some whispers by worried SAFRE members that the campaign may have backfired, encouraging a new group of youths to take up ancient coin collecting because it is now �gangsta cool� in some hipster circles.

If Coiney 2012 in fact ends up bringing new, younger collectors to ancient coin collecting it will indeed be the hit that missed in a big way.

AIA Young Patrons Treated to Undocumented Coins at ANS

AIA Young Patrons have been treated to a visit of the ANS and its vast collection of ancient coins, which includes hundreds of thousands undocumented coins of the sort the AIA has condemned before the State Department's Cultural Property Advisory Committee. See http://www.archaeological.org/news/aianews/8634

The ANS only exists because of the generous contributions of collectors and dealers, though archaeologists associated with the AIA have also condemned them as no better than looters.

Yet, condemning collectors and dealers has not stopped the AIA from profiting from the ANS' wonderful collection of unprovenanced coins.

Hopefully, the more inquisitive of the AIA's young patrons will question the hypocrisy of the the AIA's actions.

Or, perhaps, this experience will be treated as a bit of a "guilty pleasure."

Greek Import Restrictions: Winners and Losers

Winners

1. The Greek Cultural Bureaucracy-- The Greek Government has mismanaged its economy so badly that it is relying on Germany and the rest of the EU to bail it out. Greece's cultural bureaucracy is as poorly managed and as corrupt as the rest of the Greek government. Yet, the MOU will no doubt be cited as some sort of U.S. "seal of approval" for the status quo.

2. The Obdurate State Department Cultural Bureaucracy- You've got to hand it to the entrenched bureaucrats at the State Department Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and its Cultural Heritage Center. Important members of Congress have expressed severe misgivings about the implementation of their statutory authority. They have been sued in Court, and even though their decisions have been upheld to date as a matter of judicial deference, this is not the same as a ringing endorsement. Yet, culture creep has turned into a roll with these expansive regulations, by far the most wide ranging since the Chinese MOU in 2009.

3. The AIA and its Archaeological Fanatics- These fanatics hold that the only legitimate exchange of archaeological artifacts is a museum loan. They view import restrictions as a way to clamp down on a trade they do not believe should exist. So far their anti-collecting agenda has meshed well with the nationalism of countries like Greece and the predilection of the State Department to trade favors to the detriment of American collectors, dealers and museums.

4. Wealthy Greek Collectors- The fanatics criticise American collectors and museums, but don't seem to care that wealthy Greek collectors buy from the same sources as American collectors do. Now, Greek collectors will gain a competitive advantage over their American counterparts who can no longer import undocumented cultural goods. No wonder a representative from the Alpha Bank, which maintains Greece's best coin collection in private hands, was part of the Greek delegation that attended the public meeting of CPAC that discussed the MOU.

Losers

1. Greece's Cultural Patrimony-Even before Greece's recent financial meltdown, the country was highly dependent on EU funds to care for its major sites. Now, with money so tight, how can the country take care of its major sites, let alone the millions of minor objects in its stores? Yet, Greek cultural officials will no doubt hope that news about the MOU will will divert attention away from these hard financial realities and help stave off much needed reforms.

2. The CPIA and the Process Congress Contemplated- Import restrictions under the CPIA are supposed to be limited to culturally significant artifacts. Less onerous measures are supposed to be considered first. The restrictions are supposed to be part of a concerted international response. Here, these broad restrictions simply ignore these requirements. Moreover, the failure to give heed to the vast majority of public comments that opposed restrictions on coins again suggests that the whole process is little more than a farce.

3. The Small Businesses of the Antiquities and Numismatic trade- Import restrictions bar entry of cultural goods legitimately for sale abroad where documentation requirements for legal import cannot be met. This is particularly a problem for the small businesses of the numismatic trade. The documentation necessary for legal import is either typically unavailable for artifacts of limited value like most ancient coins or cost prohibitive to produce for such inexpensive items.

4. US Collectors- US collectors of cultural goods, including the thousands upon thousands of Greek coin collectors will face considerable problems securing material, particularly as time goes on.

5. US Museums- Loans are a poor substitute for purchases or donations for collecting museums. The archaeological fanatics may promote loans as a substitute, but they don't have to arrange such loans with the Greek bureaucracy or pay the considerable expense associated with such loans, which typically include expensive conservation costs.

6. US Customs- US Customs officers now have another broad set of import restrictions to administer. While they may make the "big bust" on occasion, I doubt that will make up for the frustration factor of trying to ascertain whether every ancient coin or minor antiquity that "looks Greek" is on the designated list or not.

An Armistice Day Remembrance of One Young Collector Killed in Action During the Great War

Tomorrow is Armistice Day or Veteran's Day in the US.

We celebrate all veterans that day, but the holiday began as a commemoration of the end of the First World War.

It has been estimated that there were almost 10 million military casualties in that conflict.

Whether by coincidence or design, the collection of one young man who was a victim of that conflict is being sold at auction. See http://www.mortonandeden.com/pdfcats/52web.pdf

Morton and Eden describe Lot 794 as follows:

A collection of Roman bronze coins, formed before the Great War, comprising sestertii (about 45), middle brass (about 50) and other mainly Ae (about 180) together with a number of cast copies, generally poor to fine, some better, the collection housed in a mahogany fall-front coin cabinet carcass (12 ins wide x 10.5 ins deep x 9 ins high) with brass carrying handles and containing 10 trays with brass pulls

(lot) �800-1,200

The collection was formed by Gordon Wyatt Goldfinch of 92 Elfindale Road, Herne Hill, London SE. In the Great War he served in the 2nd London Field Ambulance, Royal Army Medical Corps, having volunteered in August 1914, and was killed in action, aged 23, on 28th March 1918. Offered with the lot are two hand-written notebooks, one dated August 1910 (when he was aged 15), listing the coins, the prices paid and often giving details of where they were bought (many were from Lincoln & Son, London). Also included are two photographic postcards of the collector, both signed, one in civilian dress, dated September 1914, the other as a soldier in winter uniform in France, dated December 1916. Lots 766 and 775 also comprise coins from this collection.

It's sad to see this collection dispersed some ways, but I'm glad that Mr. Goldfinch's sacrifice is being remembered in Morton and Eden's catalogue some 93 years after he was killed in action.

Addendum: This blog about British memorial medallions and the mixed feelings they generated is worth reading: http://www.johnwinter.net/jw/2011/11/the-dead-mans-penny/

The Bulgarian MOU: What's Really At Stake

Behind all the slogans, what will be the real impact of any US decision to impose import restrictions on behalf of Bulgaria?

Will it end looting of archaeological sites by Bulgarians? No.

Will it diminish demand for Bulgarian antiquities? Doubtful, as any restrictions will only apply to American collectors. Collectors in Bulgaria, the rest of the EU and emerging markets in Asia and the Middle East will be unaffected.

Will it end corruption in Bulgaria? No, if anything, it might actually open up new avenues for corrupt officials such as the resale of repatriated antiquities.

Will it encourage the Bulgarian cultural establishment to implement more rational and inclusive laws governing the sale and possession of cultural goods? No, if anything, it will butress the current status quo.

Will it make it far more difficult to import coins "of Bulgarian type" into the United States? Yes. Despite some claims to the contrary made by know-it-all archaeologists with no practical experience whatsoever, it really is difficult to import coins on the designated list. Information for the required certifications as to the whereabouts of a restricted coins as of the date of the restrictions, is typically unavailable for all but the very few coins that are photographed for purposes of auctions, perhaps 1 coin in every 10,000, and valuable ones at that. Thus, while the impact of restrictions on expensive coins that are more likely to have appeared at auction is tempered to some extent, as a practical matter import restrictions bar legal entry of the vast majority of coins readily available in legitimate markets abroad.

So, by all means, let your views be your guide in commenting on the Bulgarian MOU-- but hopefully only do so with knowledge of what is really at stake.

AIA, Related Groups Call for Increased US Vigilence for Looted Egyptian Materials

The AIA and related groups have called for increased law enforcement vigilance for possibly looted Egyptian archaeological material. See
http://hosted.verticalresponse.com/675086/9b952123c1/285206853/7b4b5690fd/

While I understand the AIA's and related group's concerns, I also hope this is not the beginning of a witch hunt aimed at collectors and dealers in Egyptian antiquities, which, after all, have been avidly collected for generations. Remember the claims that boatloads of looted Iraqi materials would be entering the country? Well, that never happened, but archaeologists certainly took out their understandable frustrations about looting in Iraq on collectors and museums, all with little cause, it turns out. I just hope that history does not repeat itself again.

What is the Impact of Import Restrictions on "Coins of Italian Type?"

Many collectors have expressed understandable concern about the impact of new import restrictions on "coins of Italian type." Hopefully, this overview will be of some assistance.

I. What Coins Are Now Restricted?

The January 19, 2011 Federal Register contains a notice that restrictions are extended to certain coins of Italian type:

http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2011/pdf/2011-882.pdf

The categories of coins subject to the restrictions are as follows:

F. Coins of Italian Types�A type
catalogue of listed currency and coins
can be found in N.K. Rutter et al. (eds.),
Historia Numorum: Italy (London,
2001). Others appear in G.F. Hill Coins
of Ancient Sicily (Westminster, 1903).

1. Lumps of bronze (Aes Rude)�
Irregular lumps of bronze used as an
early medium of exchange in Italy from
the 9th century B.C.

2. Bronze bars (Ramo Secco and Aes
Signatum)�Cast bronze bars (whole or
cut) used as a media of exchange in
central Italy and Etruria from the 5th
century B.C.

3. Cast coins (Aes Grave)�Cast
bronze coins of Rome, Etruscan, and
Italian cities from the 4th century B.C.

4. Struck coins�Struck coins of the
Roman Republic and Etruscan cities
produced in gold, silver, and bronze
from the 3rd century B.C. to c. 211 B.C.,
including the ��Romano-Campanian��
coinage.

5. Struck colonial coinage�Struck
bronze coins of Roman republican and
early imperial colonies and municipia
in Italy, Sicily, and Sardinia from the
3rd century B.C. to c. A.D. 37.

6. Coins of the Greek cities�Coins of
the Greek cities in the southern Italian
peninsula and in Sicily (Magna
Graecia), cast or struck in gold, silver,
and bronze, from the late 6th century
B.C. to c. 200 B.C.

Source: Federal Register: January 19, 2011 (Volume 76, Number 12)
[Rules and Regulations] Pages 3012-3013.

Accordingly, although the import of coins of great interest to collectors of Greek coins are restricted, the import of most Republican and Imperial coins remains unrestricted.

II. What are the impact of Restrictions?

The above restricted coins of Italian types can only be imported into the United States with an export certificate issued by the Republic of Italy or �satisfactory evidence� demonstrating that the coins were exported from or were outside of Italy at least 10 years prior to importation into the US or that the Coins were exported from or were outside of Italy before January 19, 2011. What constitutes �satisfactory evidence� is ultimately left to the discretion of Customs, but usually takes the form of a declaration by the importer and a statement by the consigner.

Source: Convention on Cultural Property Implementation Act (�CPIA�) � 307, 19 U.S.C. � 2606.

III. Open Questions

Under the CPIA, import restrictions only apply to coins �first found in the ground� in Italy. See CPIA � 302 (2). However, if a coin of Italian type was excavated outside of Italy in a country that declares anything found in the ground to be state property (i.e., Egypt, Greece or Turkey), it may still be subject to seizure pursuant to the National Stolen Property Act and other provisions of U.S. law. The same principal would apply to a non-restricted Roman coin proven to have been illicitly excavated in Italy in violation of that country's patrimony laws.

The more relevant question is how U.S. Customs and Border Protection (�CBP�) will treat "coins of Italian type" which do not have a known find spot and/or whose whereabouts cannot be traced back before January 19, 2011, i.e., presumably an ever increasing number of coins as time passes. In the test case brought by the Ancient Coin Collectors Guild concerning Cypriot and Chinese import restrictions, CBP has taken the position that �country of origin� for purpose of the CPIA is synonymous with country of manufacture because Cypriot and Chinese coins may be found where they are manufactured. The Court has yet to rule on the validity of this claim.

There is another question related to coins already in the United States. Import restrictions should not apply to them, but what happens if they are sent abroad? Can they be imported back into the United States without the usual certifications? Presumably so, but again we will only know once CBP confronts the issue.

There also is the issue of the overzealous CBP officials. For example, one recently retired official in CBP's New York office was known to reject the certifications authorized under the CPIA. Instead, he apparently often demanded that the importer produce pictures of artifacts from auction catalogues to prove that an artifact was out of the country of origin as of the date of the restrictions. Obviously, if applied to coins, this would pose a major burden to importers.

In summary, these unprecedented restrictions promise to be a major headache for everyone, except, of course, their proponents in the archaeological community and the Department of State Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs Cultural Heritage Center. The best I can suggest is to document your coins as being out of Italy before January 19, 2011 as well as you can and only purchase coins from established sellers.