Coin collectors of Germany are asking for help

Sounds like another global warning scare. Wait isn't it now climate change.
I think the smelting and mining and manufacturing process of all coins should be immediately halted because of the immediate and intensive damage it is causing on the earths finite resources.
The above was written with tongue firmly in cheek.
Sign the petition save the coins.

 

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Ouch.

I know someone who owns a very fine, antique cello bow -- the kind that's worth more than many new cars. Like many cello bows, it's made of pernambuco wood, and other parts of it are made from ebony, tortoise shell, and whalebone. He said he'll never take it out of the country, even though he has paperwork for it.

 

Makes sense to be careful, yes. By the way, while the Cultural Affairs Committee did not deal with that third party platform petition the way it would have to with the Bundestag's own platform, the government does have this FAQ page in German, quite comprehensive, last updated three days ago.

The section about "... Münzsammler oder Münzhändler?" says that hardly anything will change for coin collectors. Basically the only difference is that the regulations that already apply to sales of certain rare coins (cultural heritage) from Germany to places outside the European Union will, according to that FAQ, in the future also apply to sales from DE to other EU member states.

Christian

 

Any new updates?

 

From the petition website: "Although the new law on the protection of cultural property has arrived, it has not turned out to be as bad as its first draft had suggested. All minerals and fossils, for instance, have been removed from the law, and the due diligence on the part of the private owner has been drastically mitigated. The most important victory though, was the general recognition that coins are not inherently archaeological objects, which implies great easement in terms of care and trade." (Update 21 March)
https://www.openpetition.de/petition/blog/fuer-den-erhalt-des-privaten-sammelns

Christian

 

Was that recognition for coins the result of efforts by the coin collecting community?

 

Guess the initiators of that petition, and many coin collectors, would say "yes, of course". However, this partial success had many parents. The suggested connection between looting unique artifacts and supporting IS terrorism turned out to be quite "fragile"; many experts argued that most coins, minerals, etc. are not archaeological objects per se; and who knows what (in terms of lobbying) went on behind the scenes.

As Ms Kampmann's update says, the fact that many collectors shared such concerns may have convinced the legislators that the opposition was not just a few unscrupulous dealers. But as usual, making such a law and applying it are two different things, or rather sides of a coins. Now as for documenting your collection, "pedigrees" included, in my opinion that is something one should do anyway, at least with expensive older coins.

Christian

 

Thanks Chris, this is good news too hear that there was at least some success in our fight. I hope we all can work together in the future so we do not have too deal with this again, at least not to the point where a government tries too make major changes to how we collect. I do hope though that we can make more positive changes to the hobby to the point where the our governments will back off on some of these laws and see the positives of collecting. Like how hobbies can keep some people out of trouble and or help with depression. There have been studies showing that people with hobbies live longer lives.

 

If anybody here wants to read some Legalese, the federal German government provided a "courtesy translation" of the updated Kulturgutschutzgesetz (Cultural Property Protection Act which can be downloaded here: https://www.bundesregierung.de/Cont...esetz-englisch.pdf?__blob=publicationFile&v=2
(PDF, English, ~200K)

The government also published a new "handout" which tries to address the concerns not only among numismatists. Don't think that is available in non-German languages though ...
https://www.bundesregierung.de/Cont...g-handreichung.pdf?__blob=publicationFile&v=1
(PDF, German, ~5 MB)

Christian