NY billionaire returns stolen antiquities

Vance’s decisions on prosecutions are always based on politics - I’ll leave the rest unsaid. He will not be out of the public eye for long -professional panderers like him are too useful to be overlooked.

 

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The hope of some people that cultural property laws will somehow be reversed is simply blinkered. If numismatic collectors and dealers don't decide to get on "the right side of history" and engage proactively and meaningfully to shape the laws in a more practical way that recognizes the arc, then you will join the ivory collectors, whale-blubber connoisseurs, and rhino-horn pharmacists in the self-pity room.

 

"You"? Not "we"?

 

It was in the early to mid 2000s that several high profile but younger dealers in ancient coins with whom I was acquainted began to move away from dealing and into the numismatic services side because they could read the proverbial 'handwriting on the wall'.

 

I know I'm late to the table but that's my MO these days. This story reminded me of a similar story about the billionaire Green family who owns Hobby Lobby. They were acquiring religious artifacts, with many of them being ones plundered from museums when the Iraqi regime fell. They were caught and fined several million dollars and ordered to return many of them. What really irks me about this family is that they paint themselves as these devoutly religious people, preaching their values to everyone else. Yet, they get caught knowingly acquiring stolen artifacts. They make a big deal about telling everyone that none of their employees work on Sunday (their stores are closed). Yet, when I lived in Oklahoma (where they are based), I'd see Hobby Lobby trucks on the interstates routinely on Sundays. I guess they make an exception to their religious rules for truckers.

 

Without judging the probity of the family Green in their collecting, it is fair to say that many foreign governments are rapacious as regards artifacts to which said government has the most tenuous historical or cultural connection, if any. And, that foreign governments and museums are sometimes poor custodians of the items they do acquire. There is also little doubt in my mind that without the existence of the numismatic collector community which provides a market allowing price discovery of coins, newly discovered precious metal coins would often suffer the same fate as their predecessors in centuries past. That is, the melting pot!

 

Are private collectors better custodians? When a hoard is found, well-known dealers from Europe or North America manage to buy it and carefully disperse the coins one by one on the market with bogus unverifiable origins (e.g. "from a European collection made before 1967" or "From a North American dealer"), keeping secret not only the find-spot they perfectly know, but also which coins were hoarded together with which other ones. Willful destruction of precious historical information. This happens for all kind of ancient hoards, even in UK despite its famous law when the guy who found the hoard does not want to share with the owner of the land...

 

Once a thief always a thief!

 

@GinoLR , I also lament the loss of provenance and historical information which occurs with the undocumented dispersal of hoards. The UK laws are an attempt to balance the competing interests of the discoverer, the landowner, and the public. The laws seems to me to work fairly well. There will always be some individuals who will avoid reporting their discoveries in an attempt to maximize their own gains, and will risk the penalties in the law to do so.

My quarrel is more with the countries who regard every discovered coin as part of their “patrimony.” They confiscate the findings with no real compensation to the finder or landowner. These policies encourage secrecy as regards findspots, hoard contents, and archeological context. The finder knows he will never realize the market value of the coins, because there is no legal market in his country. He may even decide it is prudent to melt the coins, which is rather horrifying to us collectors. Otherwise, they are smuggled into the coin trade lacking valuable historical context. The Draconian laws achieve the exact opposite of their intention.

Many countries are very corrupt, and it is doubtful every discovery confiscated by state officials ever reaches a museum. If it does, it may languish in a drawer in the basement for the next century, until liberated by war, revolution, or theft.

I believe most serious collectors who possess the bulk of the ancient coins on the market are excellent custodians of their treasures. It is not immediately obvious to me that governments do a better job.

 

... and rightfully so, isn't it?
History, heritage, patrimony are not the privilege of some nations. There are old countries that have been around for 5000 years, like China or Egypt, and younger nations that are only 250 years old, like USA, or even 50 years like Bangladesh. All of them can rightfully claim monuments, archaeological sites, archaeological material discovered within their present borders as their national heritage! Even if these nations did not exist yet in Antiquity, there were people living on their territories, and buried there, who were the ancestors of the present citizens. What makes a nation, a fatherland? An old writer replied : "the land and the dead".
Preserving national heritage and making it accessible to the public in local museums is an important issue. It helps building a patriotic conscience, to make today's citizens realize what they are the result of. I consider this one of the universal human rights.
Corruption of local officials is not a valid reason to ignore it. What is corruption, in the first place? Illegally sacrificing general interest for individual profit. Isn't it exactly what many dealers and auctioneers of the first world do when they smuggle ancient artefacts and coins to London or New York and what many collectors do when they bid and buy without asking questions?
National and international laws on patrimony and heritage are far from being perfect. Laws are one thing, but what really matters is the interpretation of the laws that is made. The right of nations to claim collective national property of their historical heritage cannot be ignored as a principle, but we must also take into consideration the right of passionate individuals to own personal collections or artworks. It should be possible to reach a fairly balanced appreciation.

 

I think we agree more than we disagree. I would only say that governments have not been consistent good custodians of the treasures of the past, and this has been true for centuries. The Protestant revolution in England destroyed an immeasurable amount of Catholic art, sculpture, and illuminated manuscripts as a matter of government policy. The French Revolution resulted in the destruction and desecration of cathedrals and monasteries as a matter of government policy. The USSR sold off marketable treasures to men like Armand Hammer for ready cash, as well as blowing up historic churches and cathedrals. The US government melted almost every gold coin it could get its hands on during Franklin Roosevelt’s presidency. China’s cultural revolution was not interested in preserving the past, but obliterating it. Saudi Arabia has reportedly bulldozed 90% of Mecca’s cultural heritage in the past 3 decades, and not relics of some forgotten pre-Islamic history but its own Moslem heritage. Other Islamic regimes have only recently destroyed the Arch at Palmyra and the Bamiyan Buddhas, again as a matter of deliberate policy.
The reverence for the past one could expect from a contemporary educated archeologist (or numismatist) from Tokyo or Stockholm is not a universal attitude among people, even people who exercise governmental power. Destruction of the past has been a frequent objective of government throughout the world. Those coins and treasures which have escaped destruction have sometimes done so because they avoided government attention, rather than benefitted from it.