Roma Numismatics, Richard Beale Arrested.

Well now I'm confused. This guy don't got nothing to do with Roma Tomatoes, does he? I hope not. I love Roma Tomatoes!

 

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Actually my comment has nothing to do with the people finding the coins, rich, poor, gangs etc. My comment had to do with the nation state claiming ownership of these objects on behalf of some nonsensical idea of cultural patrimony, asserted by nations that happen to be temporarily in control of the area in which the objects are found. No nation state "owns" the past - these states had nothing to do with producing these objects and most of the laws are very poor at preservation.

The best way seems to be the UK's treasure trove, but I question the UK's claim to assert a right of first refusal. But, nevertheless, of all the laws that deal with objects from the past, this seems to work the best. If power needs to be given to a nation state over these objects, this is far better than the sweeping prohibitions against assertions of ownership, which leads to the destruction of these objects, as in Greece, or criminal gangs and corruption, as in everywhere else with restrictive laws - none of which work well or will ever work well.

 

I agree 100 percent with you. The UK has the best and most fair system. If you find a MS Allectus Aureus on your property its yours to keep or sell to a museum/ I would keep it for my coll. Or you find a Celtic hoard on a landowners property its split 50/50/ upto both parties to decide on selling the coins to a museum/ keeping them.
With the Roma aureus/ the collector who fairly bought the coin/ should keep ownership/ being forced to return the coin was something you would find happening in Putin's Russia.

 

That’s not exactly how UK treasure trove laws work panzerman. The finders don’t decide if they sell a hoard to a museum or not. The Treasure trove officials decide who is getting the hoard. If it’s decided the coins should go to a museum, then they pay the finders for the coins. The finders have no say in who gets to keep the hoard.

Even single gold and silver coins are subject to PAS rules. So that single MS Allectus you found would have to be reported and the state will either let you keep it or will require you to turn it over to the state, but you will be paid a fair price for it.

anything over 10% silver is considered treasure and subject to PAS laws.

Barry Murphy

 

This is concerning as a lot of collectors have made purchases from Roma Numismatics. But I'm sure there not the only dealer "fabricating" provenance to sell coins.

 

Provenance is one thing authenticity is another - if it is authentic who cares where it came from as long as it wasn’t stolen? By stolen I mean from someone else not some modern nation state since none have a legitimate claim to these objects.

Provenance to satisfy some claim of cultural patrimony shouldn’t be a crime - the idea that modern nation states have the right to ownership of “cultural artifacts” is absurd. Should the US government claim ownership if I buy a parcel of land and find civil war artifacts? On what possible basis?

This is even more true with respect to the nonsense claimed by modern governments that it somehow owns artifacts made thousands of years in the past. In Greece this leads to such artifacts being tossed into the sea, if for example, artifacts are found during property development. Great way to preserve the past.

These claims are relatively recent and utterly without a rational legal basis especially when it comes to coins. What if the modern government is itself illegitimate? Suppose for example that NAZI Germany made claims as to ancient artifacts - would these honored? Or the Mullahs in Iran? Or Saddam Hussein’s Iraq? Or does the government have to be somehow legitimate- or does even tyrannical regimes get a pass for in this instance making “legitimate” claim?

This just illustrates the absurdity of modern nation states making claims of ownership of ancient artifacts based on an absurd claim of cultural patrimony. Or perhaps if it is a UN Treaty it should be honored, as if that entity is entitled to any deference especially given recent events.

 

You keep repeating this mantra that modern nation states do not have a legitimate claim to retain ownership of and preserve objects discovered within their borders (obviously, material discovered since passing legislation which protects its status - as there are states who did not always do this), almost as if you repeat it enough times it will become true. You speak as though the rights of collectors trump the rule of law. As many have found, they do not.

Let me be blunt. This is an imperialistic, denigrating attitude. Every sovereign nation state on planet Earth has the right to make and enforce its own laws regarding cultural heritage. That is a sacred, unalienable right which your protestations do not threaten in the slightest.

 

Nazi Germany was a legitimate state. The nazi government came from regular elections. Nazi Germany had business and diplomatic relations with all nations of the civilized world before declarations of war, some being earlier than others. The Mullahs' Iran and Saddam Hussein's Iraq are or were legitimate states a well, they have or had a seat at the UN.

And, of course, it is or was their right to claim ownership of their national historic heritage.

 

I think that was his point, though. That something is wrong when objects must be repatriated, for humanistic and institutionalist-legal reasons, back to thoroughly anti-humanistic states. Especially since authoritarian and racial-supremacist states also tend to be obsessed with ancient history and with using them to support their own political-cultural narratives.

Personally, I find the the most compelling reason for protecting most small ordinary objects like coins to be the preservation of archaeological data (recording hoards, findspots, etc., before the objects can be dispersed, which doesn't happen with indiscriminate metal detecting).

I do think it's best to follow the laws, though, as I don't think there's a better way to do it.

 

Browsing an auction today I came across this:-
https://www.biddr.com/auctions/nomisma-aste/browse?a=4034&l=4769318
So a quite common coin minted in London can't be shipped out of Italy. Here I am in the UK and someone in Italy has the right to own it but I don't.
I don't claim it's my cultural patrimony or anything, I don't want that coin anyway, and the auction house are quite rightly following the law, but you can see how perfectly reasonable concerns about looting etc can escalate into surreal scenarios like this.

 

I wonder how many artifacts in British Museums/ Louvre/ Hermitage are looted? I guess there are one set of laws for ordinary folks and the elite museum heads. In case of Hermitage/ most of it by Red Army WW2/ during 1930's when the Spanish Republican (Communist Regime) sent all the Spanish gold/ crown jewels to Stalin for "safe keepng".

 

I understand what you're saying here, but it's worth keeping in mind a couple things:

1: Museums are the actors hit hardest by cultural patrimony claims and seizures. The actors aggressively pursuing repatriation tend to view museums as "the enemy," and lump them in with private collectors and dealers as "the other side." At least in the USA, they dedicate much or even most of their energy to figuring out which museums' objects can be seized (or even used as evidence in criminal prosecution of curators, which happens surprisingly regularly).

2: As a policy matter, people recognize there has to some cutoff point, and that the most immediate (and most agreed-upon) concern is future (and very recent) looting/undocumented harvesting of antiquities. So there is a very sound policy reason to de-emphasize objects that have been in collections for a long time. (Likewise, there is a sound reason for collectors to incentivize older, well-documented provenances by paying a bit more for them.)

Pre-1970 is the generally agreed upon "gold standard" to leave objects alone in private or institutional collections, except, of course, under extraordinary circumstances. (In fact, museums are usually held to much stricter standards.)

So, the stuff you mention like WWII loot taken by governments could definitely still be vulnerable to lawsuits seeking repatriation, if someone "gets a bee in their bonnet."

Of course, Russia doesn't really care about international legal bodies. If they do return any of it, it'll be in trade for some other political goal like getting some assets unfrozen in a Spanish bank.

Very similar: Russia wants a bunch of artifacts back that were lost ca. WWII -- including ancient Greek coins, not because another country came and looted them, but because Stalin sold a big chunk of Hermitage coins on the international auction market! (Viz. at least four Schlessinger sales in the 1930s.)

 

I think one topic, the most important topic, that everyone has overlooked is the fact that these coins were international currency. It was made to pay for goods and services anywhere in the known world. So therefore what rights does any country have to regulate it's import or export. Otherwise what will stop governments in the future from regulating the coinage that's currently produced? Artifacts are a different topic but coins are "currency" and therefore should not be regulated.

 

I don't think anyone's overlooking that they were currency and traveled. It's the reason why the country with a legal claim to patrimony is the one where the coin is found, not where it was produced.

But, in a literal sense, they're not currency anymore. Most of the Roman coins, for instance, were literally de-monetized. And none of us treat ancient coins as currency, we treat them as collectible objects and/or historical & archaeological data.

Having once been currency doesn't diminish any of that. Economic activity is always an important part of history and culture.

Governments want to impose restrictions on the trade of ancient coins because they recognize in them many of the same values as collectors, historians/scientists, and museums.

Also, actual, present-day currency isn't somehow exempt from legislation. There are all kinds of legal restrictions around the world on the import/export of coins & paper money as money. (I would be surprised if there are any countries at all that don't have some kind of legal regulations on currency.)

 

I think you have you are confused about the definition of “imperialist” - with modern nation states seeking to impose their power against others based on a nonsensical notion of cultural patrimony quite “imperialist.” Actually the word has no relevance in this discussion. I’m not going to restate my position other than to say that just because some nation has absolutist laws on cultural patrimony that doesn’t mean I have to support enforcing those laws in my own country by supporting policies aimed at returning objects that the nation deems its own personal property and therefore somehow “stolen.”

On the contrary, as is the right of any citizen in my country I can (and do) write letters to politicians, comment on blogs and support organizations that oppose enforcement of other nations laws on cultural patrimony. And hopefully the result of these efforts will be that my nation will stop enforcing absurd claims of cultural patrimony.