Supreme Court Denies Cert.

Disappointingly, but perhaps not surprisingly given the some 150 petitions before the Court at its last conference, the Supreme Court has denied the ACCG's petition for certiorari.  (The Court granted certiorari in four cases, two of which were summarily sent back to the Second Circuit for consideration of a decision just issued this year.)

The Supreme Court's order has no precedential value, leaving the Fourth Circuit�s decision that the State Department's and U.S. Customs' decision-making is generally only subject to "political" rather than "judicial" review only applicable in that Circuit.  

ACCG now plans to contest the forfeiture action the Fourth Circuit anticipates the Government will file against the coins the ACCG imported for purposes of its test case. 

The test case is part of the ACCG's continuing effort to educate the public and government decision-makers about the damage overbroad restrictions have done to the ability of American collectors to legally import coins of the sort that remain widely available abroad, including in places like Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece, Italy and China.  

In that regard,  the latest post on the Chasing Aphrodite blog provides further discussion about the thinking behind the test case. 

No Joy in Cyprus

Whatever happens at the Supreme Court's conference on the ACCG test case this Friday, there will be no joy in Cyprus.   Cypriot bank depositors are paying for the bad lending practices of its big banks, including the Bank of Cyprus.  But serious questions have been raised about fairness.  The little guy and the foreigner (mostly rich Russians)  have been singled out while connected bondholders, sovereign debt holders and depositors in Greek operations in Cypriot banks have apparently gotten off the hook.  Doesn't such cronyism and shady dealings "all for a good cause" sound all too familiar?

Anti-Trade?

I'm a bit amused by "cultural heritage lawyer" Rick St. Hilaire's take on exports of cultural goods particularly as spun by fellow archaeo-blogger Paul Barford.   Most decision-makers think international trade which goes through proper channels (as must be the case here as it was captured by government statisticians) is a good thing.  But that does not seem to be the assumption of the archaeological blogosphere.

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.

ACCG Petition for Cert. to be Considered Next Week

The Supreme Court will consider the Ancient Coin Collectors Guild's petition for certiorari at its March 22, 2013 conference.  One should not read anything into the Government waiver of its right to respond to the Petition.  CPO understands that this is standard operating procedure for the very busy Solicitor General's office.

New Work on Etruscan Coinage

I'm looking forward to coin dealer and scholar Italo Vecchi's new work about the enigmatic coinage of the Etruscan city states. I understand that Lord Renfrew collects this series.  One wonders if all Lord Renfrew's coins have a demonstrable provenance back to at least 1970.

Rewriting the Convention on Cultural Property Implementation Act

It's no surprise that Dr. Nathan Elkins-- one of the AIA's chief proponents of import restrictions on common historical coins of the sort collected worldwide-- claims that any coin type that circulated "predominantly" in a given country should be placed on the "designated list" for restrictions when it's easy for him to generalize that coins circulate "predominantly" where they are made.

But the governing statute, the Convention on Cultural Property Implementation Act, calls for much more.  Assuming other statutory criteria are also met, it only authorizes seizure and forfeiture of artifacts "first discovered within and...subject to export control by" a given country. 19 U.S.C. Section 2601(2)(c).

The ACCG has indicated that the Government could comply with the plain meaning of the CPIA in either one or two ways:  (1) establishing by undisputed scholarly evidence that the coins placed on the designated lists could only have been discovered in a given country for which import restrictions are granted and, hence, must be subject to their export controls; or (2) demonstrating by documentary evidence that any coins Customs seizes were in fact discovered in that country and, hence must be subject to that country's export controls.


The ACCG and others have offered scholarly evidence to suggest that ancient coins as a general rule circulated far from where they were minted.  The fact that some (local bronze coins) typically circulated closer to home than others (precious metal coins and Imperial bronze issues) does not excuse the State Department's and U.S. Customs' efforts to ban coin imports based on place of production rather than s find spot.

The overbroad import bans Elkins and the AIA support threaten to cut off collector access to the vast majority of ancient coins openly available on the international market.  In contrast, restrictions squarely linked to find spots are more narrowly tailored to deterring pillage of archaeological sites.  That, of course, is the primary goal of the CPIA; not the furthering of nationalistic impulses that lay claim to any unprovenanced coin as the presumptive state property of the AIA's allies in foreign cultural bureaucracies.