Legal Issues with coin finds of ancient coins

This is a little old but I had something to say about this based on my observations and experience: I answered the original thread from 2024, but it didn't show up on any alerts and I would like someone to read what I wrote... even if they disagree.



GinoLR said: ↑

[qoute] Nonsense? I could at least understand this point of view but, on this topic, the burden of proof must be on the seller and not the archaeologists who suspect coins surfacing in an auction may be blood antiquities or stolen items.

And to quote @medoraman :
"a farmer plowing his field finding a broken pot with it inside? Prove to me it is not a poor family having a blessing from heaven of an asset that will make their life just a little easier"? I can tell you what happens in such case: a poor farmer is nobody in some countries. As soon as he tries to show his find to anybody else for estimation, or to sell it, all the vultures will rush on this carcass: local cops, local authorities, everyone in position of creating him problems will demand his share. At best the poor farmer will get peanuts, and 90% of the benefit made in Zurich, London or New York will go to professional traffickers and corrupt moghuls who can access the international market. In many cases, these moghuls have links with the local organized crime or are leaders of terrorist organizations.

I can give examples. An enormous underwater hoard discovered in Gaza in 2013 and 2017, containing dozens of decadrachms of Alexander, of which less than 17 only were previously known. In an ideal world, it should have been a groundbreaking archaeological discovery, probably a wreck of the 310s BC containing bronze statues, bronze items, and thousands of silver Alexander coins. The statues immediately vanished, nobody knows where they are now. The auctioning in Western countries of the unprovenanced new decadrachms made the value of a very fine specimen plummet from 325,000 EUR in 2014 (this one had a real provenance, its sale was honest) to 23,000 USD in 2020... But the local fishermen who found the coins on the seafloor did not profit from the sales: they just got a few hundred dollars. Those who pocketed the benefit were people who could bribe the right people in Gaza (Hamas, of course) and in Israel, because they could reach the right Swiss, US and British auction firms. And what about numismatists, archaeologists, historians? All that is left for them to study is the few coins seized by the local Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities: just a few percent of the total hoard, the actual composition of which we'll never know.

There are other examples. All the Lihyan silver drachms that were unknown before 2012 and that are now sold and auctioned on a regular basis. It is obvious that they come from a hoard or an archaeological site of Saudi Arabia, but nobody knows which one, and that this source of Lihyan drachms is being illegally plundered to feed the market. I could mention too an umayyad bronze statuette stolen in Jordan from the very archaeological exavation, and an exceptional Roman gold ring with a cameo stolen from the very safe of the Jordanian Direction of Antiquities (that's crazy !) : both ended in the same London private collection, the gold ring was lately auctioned in Germany, and nothing could be done.

The Western authorities are slowly becoming conscious of the wide range of this industry, and of the necessity of doing something. Dealers and auctioneers must realize that not asking questions is not tolerable any more. Do we want collecting ancient coins becoming a morally suspect hobby? I don't, and I am sure you don't too.
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My Response:

I just wanted to point out that the reason farmers are making so little on these coins is because of the questionably immoral restrictions on selling coins and other archeologically significant artifacts that prevent them from not only getting to the market, but causes the locations and the circumstances of their discovery to be covered up. Otherwise, coins discovered by farmers in Gaza or in Israel would had quickly made themselves to the Shuck in Jerusalem where there is a community of experts (read David Hendin's work on this) on artifacts and coins who can broker better prices and get documentation for the coins pedigree.

Nothing is accomplished with the current regulation that is positive.