Court ruling on importation of ancient coins!

I always hold my breath when I'm waiting for one of my orders from Israel. Depending on who's doing the shipping—sometimes the envelope actually says "contents/coins". I've suggested that if they must write something on the packaging that they should write "Hobby supplies"

 

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idk..i figure most of us here really don't have much to worry about on our collections...i equate it with a Mad magazine gif i saw years ago with cops busting in on a kid recording protected music to a tape recorder..yeah, it's illegal, but hey..haven't they bigger and better things to do?!?..

 

Thanks lrbguy, that make the decision itself a bit clearer, although as someone raised in a Westminster type system (New Zealand) (where I do a reasonable amount of judicial review work) the US system of balance of powers as described here seems decidedly odd! Like your system, the balance of powers is maintained here in part by the judiciary providing a check on the executive but the heart of that is ensuring (via it's powers of judicial review) that the executive only acts within the powers granted to it by the legislature and no further. To that end, our judiciary would not defer to the Crown on issues of statutory interpretation in respect of definitions or anything else, it's the other way around. E.g. our executive branch could agree whatever it wants with a foreign state about say, what coins to impose import restrictions on, and our judiciary would not interfere with that agreement. But when it comes to implementing that agreement, our executive branch is still constrained by the scope of the powers granted to it by the relevant empowering legislation. It could not increase that scope by promulgating definitions in subordinate legislation or policy that are in effect wider than those in the primary Act - to do so would be crossing into the territory of the legislature. If it did, on review the courts certainly would not allow the Crown to act based on definitions beyond the scope of the definitions in the primary Act - it would essentially be acting ultra vires. But that seems to be what has happened here.

Again, making it clear that I am speaking from a non-US perspective, I didn't read the Guild's interpretation as absurd - it seems to be in line with what the Act says. Just because that might create practical difficulties for the enforcement agency would not (in the system where I come from anyway) justify the executive avoiding that problem by interpreting its powers in a manner inconsistent with it's empowering legislation. The Act says what it says, if the executive doesn't like that (and I agree that the difficulties that you have outlined are perfectly valid reasons for why it might not) the correct approach would be for the executive to seek legislative reform.

Anyway, analyzing an American decision from the perspective of NZ law is obviously a fruitless exercise! And my apologies for inflicting my ignorance of US constitutional law on the forum - it's interesting for me to see law and coins collide so I found this decision fascinating but was struggling to see how it could be correct. I take it from the above that this is essentially as it is written subject to some underlying constitutional assumptions that aren't shared between our respective jurisdictions.

It might also help if I read Ancient Coin I - is anyone able to post a link?

I would love to see counsel's take on this.

 

For anyone interested, I came across Peter Tompa's blog where he comments briefly on this decision.

 

So what are the "safe" countries? What countries can you import/export coins from/to and have peace of mind? The UK is still ok, right?

 

In July or Aug of 2008, I was going to do a presentation on Roman Coinage for the San Antonio Museum of Art which sponsered a "Roman Family Day". They have an extensive collection of Roman Coins as well as statues. Below is a current online pix.

The day prior to my presentation I contacted the museum curator to arrange display for the pieces I brought for the talk. She went absolutely bananas that I brought Roman coins of my own and acted like it was some highly illegal activity. She absolutely forbade me from having any single piece occupy museum territory. It didn't matter that the pieces all had provinences dating back to the 1980's such as NFA, CNG, & etc. She was adamant about it. She had someone else do the talk at the last minute but not handling or displaying any coins.

 

I wouldn't envy that speaker!

 

Wow, how strange! I don't understand what she was thinking.

 

I think I can imagine it. There are forces in the archaeological community out to quash the private collecting of anything having to do with what was most probably buried cultural patrimony. They want to preserve sites intact by destroying the market for illegally excavated remains. Chances are this museum curator does not want to get into that conflict and lose potential programs and support for the collection she curates. If she invites a speaker who brings material from their own collection, it looks like she is supporting the private ownership of antiquities. Better to design the talk and illustrate it with specimens from the museum collection, if they would make arrangements for a special display complete with special guard.

Until it actually touches them, people generally do not realize that an environment of repression is developing in which people are losing jobs and careers over this.

 

Probably Indy's grand daughter.

 

Yet how many museums (likely including that one) have objects displayed that are on loan from private collections. It's an odd position.

 

She was probably overreacting from stress caused by the constant scrutiny of the cultural property police.

 

And how many museums were founded on the backs of donations of private collections in the past. I am a loud opponent of looting and supporter of cultural heritage preservation but it and collecting are not mutually exclusive. The volumes of unattributed and otherwise neglected coins in the backrooms of museums is staggering.

 

I had a somewhat similar experience when I offered to donate one of my collections to a Museum, except the curator didn’t go bananas.

Amen! I think Museum Curators are under a lot of external pressure.

 

The hypocrisy of the Cultural Property types cannot be overstated. At best, they are extremely misguided and seemingly willfully ignorant of the realities of the antiquities market. We are told that we must take steps to verify provenance, reject any material that might be "illicit", whatever its expanded definition is this year, and make sure we're not contributing to the problem of looting and destruction of archaeological context. Yet, when collectors actually propose working solutions like implementing PAS-like systems across the world that's somehow a non-starter.

If the "Cultural Property" movement is to be believed, England has treasure hunters running rampant and unchecked destroying their archaeological sites so they can find a few trinkets to flog off on eBay and yet England is not asking for any MOU and have really taken a fairly laissez faire attitude with respect to these issues. Many coin auction houses have offices in England and they proudly sell coins from recent hoard finds with details about the find and at least from my observations it seems like simple details such as find spot elevate interest and prices in rather ordinary coins in many circumstances, giving finders even more incentive to properly report their finds. eBay is another great example where you can go any day of the week and find coins being sold with finders proudly sharing find spot information with coins they themselves found, cleaned and are now selling.

Because of what I see happening with the PAS I don't buy for a moment that countries like Italy or Greece are better off without such systems. Hoards are regularly being found and brought to market from these countries just as they are from the UK and we all see evidence of it but few will ever know about the find spots of these hoards or their full contents and often that knowledge will die with those people because it's rarely written down and published because of the current legal climate. Whereas their stated intentions are the protection of archaeological context and finds, the real consequence of these misguided policies is the destruction of information.

The Cultural Property types may have hoped that these policies would curtail the market and make these objects less valuable and thus, lessen the reward for them but here almost half a century since the UNESCO 1970 Convention no one can pretend that these laws have had the intended effect: if anything they seem to have made things worse. It is at this time that we seriously need collectors, archaeologists, museum curators, scholars and everyone else with skin in the game here to be brave and admit that these policies don't work, that they won't work and that we can't keep going down this road if we have as a goal the preservation and expansion of archaeological information. If you're a collector and that's not your goal, I don't know what I can tell you to change your mind at this point and if you're an archaeologist and that's not your goal it seems like you probably need a career change, but I think most people here can agree that that is a good goal to work towards and one that few can disagree with.

 

Well said, everyone. This

is a great example of groupthink/cultural cognition (call it what you want) and it will take a special effort on the part of collectors to combat it. Research on cultural cognition indicates that making inroads against entrenched, irrational views requires establishing a relationship of trust. So I strongly encourage everyone to make friends with an archaeologist or curator and definitely DO NOT get antagonistic. Don't push your arguments too hard until the trust is there. Every antagonistic interaction between a cultural protectionist and a collector is a setback for all of us.

There are people in the archaeological and museum world who are very receptive to collectors and the UK's PAS system. Just last year I loaned some coins to the Nickle Galleries in Calgary, and the curator had all the right attitudes. We need to help these good people to reach the dogmatists.