Tough Future

Below is a link to another article, this one with a photo. Lanz is right: Many of the antiquities are outright fakes, the rest the police seem to have grossly over-estimated in value, I suppose to justify the time and expense of 30 officers. Love the law or hate it, but when in another country....one should follow said laws or be aware that you may run afoul and suffer consequenses. Also, one of the arrested parties is Bulgarian, a country which has very strict laws regarding antiquities. If he was legit he would have had paperwork.

 

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This issue has hardly been discussed at all in the german ancient coin forum that I frequent.
The details that are known indicate the dealer(s) was targeted because he was offering primarily antique objects and coins from Luristan (Afghanistan), suspected of having been illegally plundered.
I'll see if I can find out more.

 

I thought German "cultural heritage" laws weren't going to apply to most low-value coins? I seem to remember something like 50k EUR being the cutoff. Am I mistaken? Is it still safe to buy from Germany?

 

@Ken Dorney and @Eduard, thanks for the additional information and perspective, which makes the situation a bit different (less horrifying for ancient coin collectors).

 

I'm bumping this thread for this hilarious piece of information: http://english.ahram.org.eg/http://...s-attempt-to-smuggle-collection-of-coins.aspx

LOL!

 

And also to point out: why would governments place restrictions on antiquities that were/are made to be imported and exported, to be used for trade and for transactions! This hobby has been around since coinage was invented! I can understand restrictions on other antiquities not related to coins and currency. There is no solid proof or logical need to put restrictions on currency.

 

I'm glad they seized that old printed atlas. Looks priceless.

And a couple of US quarters too.

 

God bless you! LOL :-D

 

Actually the US law which governs the implementation of such import restrictions specifically calls out that it is to be applied to those antiquities which have a high likelihood of having been found in a given source country, so for instance owls are not covered under the Greek MOU because they were trade coins that circulated across the Mediterranean. Unfortunately the latest MOU with Egypt reversed direction on that entirely, going against both the spirit and letter of the law, and also placed restrictions on trade coins.

 

Great to have you back, Sallent!

Oops! Sorry! That's an old thread that I commented on. Anyway, it'll be great when you're back! LOL

 

I'm happy to see that the Egyptian government is working tirelessly to protect the precious cultural heritage of Alibaba and the ancient(*) Chinese peoples whose work it represents.

(*) Most born in an earlier century!

 

Perhaps not in this case, but in many cases, regulations are a tool used by
edited - that's stepping just a bit too far over the line there

 

Sorry, I don't know how to discuss the issue of regulation without interjecting some politics. I don't think it's possible, so I will leave it alone.

 

'bout to start collecting in secret...

 

Before you do that, join the Ancient Coin Collectors' Guild if you're not already a member. They are the biggest voice on our side of the fight for our right to collect.

 

Not read the UK version thoroughly, but a date for provenance required was 1954. None of my coins have that sort of provenance. Perhaps in the future, dealers will not be able to take consignments without a paper trail for each coin. A lot are going to go out of business. I am seriously considering my collecting future.

 

1954? Where is this year mentioned?

 

Well, they aren't "amateurs."

 

It will take me a while to find it, I didn't bookmark it. The 1954 Hague Convention was set up to protect cultural heritage, so I may have misunderstood it, but I thought I read that the provenance had to be prior to 1954. If I can find the article, I will post it here.

Try here:
http://www.coinsweekly.com/en/News/...ly+13.4.2017&newsletter=CoinsWeekly+13.4.2017

 

Stay away from Political discussions, especially anything in the last several centuries or so. Absolutely none current! Please refer to the Rules. Yes , there are arguments why they are necessary for fully understanding a numismatic situation, but the forum doesn't recognize any such political , religious, or world events related to such. Thanks.