Does Collecting Certain Coins Create an Ethical Dilemma?

Known fact that the Swiss 20CHF from 1947BB have trace amounts of mercury in them - suggesting that perhaps dental gold may have been used in them. Who knows for certain?

 

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There is no mercury in dental gold. Mercury is only used in amalgam fillings and those weren't removed by the Nazi's because there was nothing they could use them for.

 

[video=youtube;zuQkZD3F2EQ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuQkZD3F2EQ&feature=related[/video]


Coins and bank notes are history. Damned to all who seek to repress the expression......

 

I have seen threads here before where people were outraged that someone was collecting WW2 era German coins. I think that is ridiculous. It never would have even occurred to me that there was something wrong with that. They are coins. They are pieces of history. Its not as if avoiding these coins is going to do any good. It won't help Hitler, he's already burning in ****. And it won't make that part of history be fogrotten about... You can watch film of it on the history channel! Collect what you want. If you think its bad "juju" to collect those coins, then I respect that personal decision. But coin collectors shouldn't be bashed for having certain coins in their collection.

 

Several of those threads may have been directed at me. I haven't been shy about posting coins that I added to my WWII collection.

 

What about devil hair Canadian currency, surely there isn't anything more evil than that!

 

Does this German currency note give the location of hidden treasure?



Looks like the lake!

Last dive for Lake Toplitz's Nazi gold

It has inspired numerous expeditions, several mysterious deaths and plenty of books. But 60 years after Nazi officers hid metal boxes in the depths of Lake Toplitz, a new attempt is being made to recover the Third Reich's fabled lost gold.

The Austrian government has given a US team permission to make an underwater expedition to the log-infested bottom of the lake.

Treasure hunters have been flocking to Lake Toplitz ever since a group of diehard Nazis retreated to this picturesque part of the Austrian Alps in the final months of the second world war.

 

Indeed, I recall at least one of them being threads started by you to discuss the coins, but they turned bad for no reason apparent to me.

 

That is the reason I started this thread. It has happened a couple times over the years. I thought it was time that we discussed this issue as a group and see what people think. Overall...I'm a little surprised that the majority have the "collect what you like" belief because that is not the response I got in those threads.

 

Is buying coins from the WTC substantially any different from buying medals, trinkets, bumper stickers, etc from the USS Arizona memorial at Pearl Harbor? While the provinance of the items is different, in each case someone is profiting from an attack on the US.

I say collect what you want, but learn from the history represented by the items you collect.

 

Yes, IMO it is very different. Firstly, the memorial for the Arizona has not had it's souvenirs "dug up" and sold, but are other mementos that are more similar to going to Mt Rushmore or another place and buying souvenirs. Second of all, the WTC coins are profiting off a tragedy that is still very fresh in people's minds, and there is no time (the great healer) to give people some ability to do more than react. It is almost like saying "Well, we lost people and buildings, but wow, look at this great treasure - you can own that!" The souvenirs at PH are not doing that.

This is more akin to the HSN junk that you see, trying to reach a market simply on emotional feelings. Most people (and I've been to the PH Memorial --- before the souvenirs came out, you had to buy your souvenirs in Waikiki or thereabouts) I think associate going to the memorial with a reverence for those lost, and the souvenir may be just to remind them of that time they went. This is not a rememberance of the time they went to the WTC to show their reverence IMO. This would be more like if someone (within 10 years or so) dug up/recovered coins from the USS Maine and sold them to the masses. They would have sold, but I don't think it would have been right.

 

If someone were to access US Navy property at Pearl Harbor they could find and cut up and sell as souvenirs significant parts of the superstructure of the USS Arizona that were removed from the ship when they cleaned out the harbor in the 1940's and even into the early 1950s. Fortunately the Navy doesn't allow access to their land dumps.

 

Well, ethics is personal I believe; personal in the sense that there is a question that one asks themselves reasons why they themselves believe something to be right or wrong. Morality is different, of course. At the local coin meeting last night, someone put up a set of Nazi stamps with Adolf Hitler on them for auction. My personal ethics would not allow me to place a bid on them. It just felt wrong to me personally to collect and pay for something with that man's face on it. But, I also agree with what you said. History, and remembrance should be preserved and not forgotten. Otherwise we are living in 'Omelas'. 'Omelas' is an ethical thought experiment that tells an allegory about people who live harmoniously in an utopic society, but they would not be able to live in such a society if it weren't for the one child hidden away in a closet who suffers tremendously and is treated like an 'it'. In other words, the allegory questions those who live in a society who turns a blind eye to the horrors that go on in the world. In my opinion, that is immoral (to turn a blind eye). So to answer your question, I believe it to be morally good, but ethically questionable. I hope that makes some sense. I am currently taking a class on Ethics (albeit, I'm in the third week of class). Ethics is, afterall, a questioning of values or rules in society.

 

I think the only Nazi "Treasure" that has ever been recovered from Lake Toplitz has been millions of pounds in Operation Bernard counterfeit British currency.

 

I believe you are correct there. But, supposedly there are logs floating in the water about half way down that is "hidding" things. Who knows.

 

To me, there are no actual coins that are off limits. I will not pay a premium for WTC-slabbed coins for the same reason that I will not pay a premium for "First Strike" slabbed coins -- to me, these do not add any interest or value.

However, there are very definitely medals that I will not touch. If the content offends me personally (and I've seen at least one Nazi medal on this site that did just that), I would never touch it.

 

I am sure some here will take offence at this plaquette from Denmark, created by J.C. Chaplain and minted by Monnaie de Paris in 1896:

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Indeed, I for one knowing that I lost family members to the Nazi's had qualms about even bidding on this. But here is the reality - it was created in 1896, some quarter of a century before the Nazi's hijacked the ancient symbol that had been used by Native Americans, people in India and in Europe as a good luck symbol. Like so many things the Nazi's stole and made their own, they also stole the swastika symbol and made it theirs.

Having a bit of a slow day one day I modified the image to make it more appropriate for presentation piece illustrating the fantastic artistry of J. C. Chaplain:

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A minute worth of my image software and the medal is now politically correct. But you know, reality is that the swastika was used as a symbol by the Carlsberg Brewery - curiously until the Nazi's pilfered it. The only thing still possessing the now offending symbol is the Carlsberg elephants guarding the gates to the brewery in Copenhagen:

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Those pre-date the Nazis, Hitler and all of their ilk.

 

I would hope we are smarter than being offended Scottishmoney by a simple swastika. I have ancient indian as well as central asian coins with it on the design. Anyone offended by such a revered historical symbol doen't know history. I detest nazis, but they do not own that symbol.

 

Chris brings up the only ethical issue I've ever had with collecting. When historical sites are pillaged and looted for their contents because the demand for antiquities trumps the threat of punishment, some sort of ethical dilemma must be brewing in any collector's head. But then I thought, if nobody digs the pieces up, what good are they doing sitting there for eternity? And if a scientific team digs them up, right or wrong, they'll sit in boxes in some dusty room for eternity anyways, for nobody to see and enjoy. Sure, a fraction of them might go to museums, but most will never be seen. Collectors are like museum curators in this sense. So, ethically, I could care less how they end up getting from the dig site to my home because I find it a tragic waste to have history locked up never to be enjoyed, thus placing the real ethical dilemma on those who remove artifacts from one tomb just to place them in another.
Guy