Is there any way to tell if Ancient coins were obtained legally?

I never thought about this before but I was watching a documentary about the black market antiquities market and they talked to some of the looters involved in it (they wore masks) and among the looted statues, pottery, figurines etc., there was a pile of uncleaned ancient coins.

I’m not sure what coinage they were exactly but it was in Jordan .

Anyway, the whole reason I wrote this post was to see if anyone knows if there is a way to know if the ancient coins we buy were obtained legally and not looted?

I know diamonds have a process to certify diamonds mined in conflict free areas so that people buying diamonds don’t end up helping terrorist groups make a profit on their slave labor but is there anything like that with coins?

Hopefully there aren’t too many looted coins out there. I may be a collector but I strongly agree with reporting any archeological find even if I saw a bunch of gold coins I would report it since once that place is disturbed certain knowledge about that culture is lost forever.

 

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Yes

Collect coins with provenances.

There's various levels but the gold standard are coins published in illustrated sale catalogues outside their source country before 1970, which are deemed legal enough for museum acquisition the world over so, absent specific claims, legal to the entire collecting world. Next level down are coins stated to be in that group, for example due to being owned by a collector who acquired before 1970. Next might be old patina coins whose surfaces suggest old collection. Next would be coins published in sale catalogues before legality challenges began with the Euphronios Krater scandal about 2000. This led to Memorandum of Understandings being drawn up with source countries c.2010 so any coins exported by host countries before that date are at least considered legal in the USA. Finally, the weakest level is to avoid buying coins from large accumulations of the same type in freshly cleaned condition which are evidently not legal as there's no country that today allows excavation or export of masses of freshly dug coins.

Provenance is key. Its up to collectors to research and decide whats good for them. Legal in the collectors country might not mean legal when and where a coin was first dug up

 

Agreed. But we should add that maybe 90% of all collectors are not buying high grades coins with pedigree, so it's almost impossible to verify if our acquisition have been obtained from "legal" sources. Even many auction houses are not really interested to know where the coins they consigne come from...

 

When I buy uncleaned coins I usually get a statement that declares they were imported legally. But, that has no real legal standing that I know of. Just a warm fuzzy disclaimer.

 

Perhaps also a good thing to remember: legal is not (necessarily) the same as ethical. Pre-1970 or 2010 or pre-whenever tells you exactly nothing about the circumstances under which the coin originally was dug up.

I don't know what percentage of the coins for sale at any time is recycled material and what percentage is new. But I'm quite sure that a fair number of the new coins
for sale wouldn't pass close scrutiny. If they would have come from official and registered hoards, the sellers would be only too eager to mention it, simply because hoard-provenance sells. Like @Ocatarinetabellatchitchix said, many auction houses are not really interested (and, possibly, at times actively not interested) in provenance, and that's at least partly out of (legal) self-preservation.

Most of us have unprovenanced coins(to use a nice euphemism) in our collection.
If that was an accusation, then I'd be guilty as charged.

 

I would argue that obtained legally and legal to buy today are different, strictly speaking, and it is very, very hard to determine if a given coin you can buy today, even one with an old provenance, was obtained legally if you are strictly worried about that. The reality is, even many old provenance coins were not dug up or exported with the express approval or supervision of the source countries they came from, even if they have a pre-1970 provenance(I believe Italy for instance passed its big Cultural Heritage law in the 1930s!). As Andrew points out, there are certain later cutoff dates that largely can be used as good proof that a coin is legal and unencumbered when acquiring coins today, but if you have to know that every single coin you ever bought was dug up and exported legally, realistically collecting ancient coins may not be the best hobby for you.

That said, you can still consider provenance and avoiding recent finds an important part of your collecting strategy without having to be a billionaire. The average cost of a coin in my collection, as of writing, is about $200, and each one has an average provenance to about 2006(almost a decade before I bought my first coin), with a number in the first half of the 20th century, and quite a few pictured in catalogs, papers or other literature published in the 70s, 80s, 90s and early 2000s. That information isn't free, I have had to build a small library to research provenances for instance, and pre-Covid I would travel to the American Numismatic Association library yearly and spend a day in the basement researching provenances and going through hundreds of old auction catalogs, but there's a lot of value in doing such research. Not only do you learn a bit more about the ownership history of your specific coin when you find a provenance hit, you get a much better feel for things like the different stylistic varieties of various types, flan shapes, etc by looking through all those examples and developing an eye for that sort of thing extremely valuable. I usually come home with at least 50-100 photos of interesting coins I don't own to add to my photofile any time I leave the ANA.

In general, as has been pointed out, old provenance coins have a certain look. It's not entirely foolproof, but you shouldn't usually expect to find provenances more than a few years old for any coin that is "blast white". Silver coins usually tone noticeably in as little as a decade, and dark, uniform toning covering an entire coin takes quite some time to form. These coins usually go for a premium as such, even if no provenance is listed, but you can usually be sure they likely weren't dug up yesterday and in my experience, with a bit of legwork you can usually find some kind of provenance for coins that have a decent bit of natural toning. Those provenances won't always be the wonderful early 20th century or even older provenances you sometimes see posted here, but even a 1990s provenance is pretty safe today since it predates any MOU the US would have signed with Italy, Greece, Egypt or any other source country and pre-MOU is roughly what I shoot for, even though those MOUs don't cover the majority of the coins I collect(yet).

 

I mainly buy my coins on ebay and I'am pretty sure that most of my money supports small sellers and coin shops from around europe and no terrorist groups or warlords.

 

I agree with just about the replies above. Its nuanced and you gotta collect what you like and where you can assert that you agree with all the ownership rules in place. Thats a matter of judgement not law with at the extremes some thinking the State should own everything and others that the State should own nothing and have no rights over ancient artefacts.

It's not a matter of law, but you gotta comply with the law in your own jurisdiction (but probably not in every possible other jurisdiction)

 

I may I please ask if it ever happened to you (or you aware of a case) where a coin was blocked in the customs (or the export was not approved) and then a photo of the coin from an old catalog unblocked it?

 

It did not happened to me, but interesting story anyway. And to answer the OP question, there is an easy way to know if your coins were taken from the ground illegally : IF THEY SHOW SIGNS OF BRONZE DISEASE !
Please read the article for more details :

https://www.coinworld.com/news/prec...d-coins-at-canadian-border-become-opportunity

 

It happened to John Nebel a few years ago, who wrote an article on his experience.

 

That's something, but as far as I read, this didn't go to court and the provenances were quite new and in any case not pre-70. One of the coins had a provenance that was not enough but "CBP indeed contacted the Turkish government, which presumably had no documentation and was busy with far more important matters". So it was released just because the Turkish government did not care.

Let's consider a more valuable coin than these in the article, something unique that sold e.g. 30k. The Greek government spots the lot in the auction and tries to confiscate it. The coin looks similar to one in a Naville sale of the 20s. There are small differences when comparing the photo of the plaster cast and the modern photo. The weight reported in the 2 catalogs has a (0.5g) 3% difference. The auctioneer/consignor have no invoice of the Naville sale nor any other documentation. What would a judge decide in this case?

 

I don't think bronze disease is a sure-fire way to determine the coin was taken from the ground illegally. AFAIK this can happen to many coins.

Based on all of the news articles I've read, the following is how I read the MOUs: while they technically prevent all but the oldest provenance coins from crossing borders, they're really a legal framework that enables governments to seize and repatriate coins that are of significant cultural significance and/or were looted from cultural sites.

My understanding is archeologists make an inventory of all coins pulled from a dig. Occasionally, those coins go missing, but it's possible to correlate those coins with the original inventory. In the Blaine WA story above, several coins in the man's possession were on the red list of known coins looted from Afghanistan. In that case, it certainly seems reasonable to seize them.

In reality, the Turkish and Greek governments may say they want all coins, but they're really interested only in certain ones. There are very few of us here with the budgets to even consider the coins which a government would actually step in to seize. I would expect those same people to seriously care about documented provenance, as that's the only real defense.

Unfortunately, there do happen to be the overzealous border agent or two who is strict in adhering to the MOUs and has the time to investigate each coin to determine where it was circulated. The odds of us "normal collectors" from hitting one are very small but not zero.

 

This is incorrect. The "Red List" does not describe specific artifacts, just general types of artifacts found in Afghanistan. Anyone with a Paypal account can buy a number of similar coins from Vcoins, many for less than $100 each. There was absolutely zero evidence that these specific coins were recently looted from Afghanistan. Even if they were, they gave them to an American university because Afghanistan wasn't willing to go through the trouble of repatriating them, which makes the whole affair basically government directed theft.

 

I see. Here's the actual red list for anyone curious. This is very vague, especially since several of those coins didn't primarily circulate in Afghanistan.

From my reading of the article, though, the subject was denied entry into Canada (reasons not provided), which made US customs suspicious on his reentry. Having 51 ancient coins on hand then didn't help his cause.

FWIW, this is the closest entry point into Canada for me and they're known to be a pita. My brother-in-law was interrogated for three hours there on reentry into the US because he'd previously travelled to Uzbekistan (he's a US citizen). A friend from Mexico, who was working at Intel and had a legal permit to work in the US, was immediately deported because when asked whether he'd ever like to live in the US, he responded "maybe, some day" and that answer was against his work permit.

It's easy to speculate since the specific facts aren't known. Why was he denied entry to Canada? Why was he travelling with a small hoard of ancient coins? Why didn't he have documentation on their import (US customs sends import forms that he could have referenced)? Did customs strong arm him (threaten him with deportation) in exchange for releasing the coins?

Therefore, while it's difficult to understand the actual facts of this case, the peculiarity of the seizure enforces the truth that this is unlikely (though not impossible) to happen to the majority of us.

 

One problem with relying on old coin catalogs for provenance is that in my limited experience, the majority of auction catalogs prior to 1970 -- and, really, prior to 1990 and even 2000 -- illustrated only a selection (usually a minority) of the coins offered, primarily the most important or notable of them. (Leaving aside all the coins sold at retail outside catalogs, or through mail-order catalogs that contained no illustrations at all.) And that doesn't even take into account the difficulty sometimes of proving -- at least to the satisfaction of a governmental authority or court if it ever came to an actual legal dispute -- that a particular coin is the same as the one illustrated (rather than a double-die match), especially when the proof takes the form of catalog photographs of casts of coins rather than the coins themselves.

To give a couple of examples, I do not believe that there is any doubt that my solidus of Arcadius has a provenance dating back to Auktion 116 München Münzhandlung Karl Kreß [Kress](Otto Helbing Nachfolger), Lot 729 (28.10.1960), as described by the dealer from whom I made the purchase, Dr. Busso Peus Nachf. in Frankfurt, Germany. See the photos and discussion at https://www.cointalk.com/threads/my-first-ancient-gold-coin-a-solidus-of-arcadius.378975/, including photos, provided by the dealer, of the relevant pages from the catalog -- including the plate illustrating Lot 729. (Copies at link.) Is it a bit difficult to tell from the tiny illustration that it's my coin? Yes, but the resemblance is pretty clear, and it's not as if that catalog is available on the Internet. So it would hardly have been worth anyone's time to search randomly through old catalogs for the last 60+ years, looking for an illustration of an Arcadius solidus that resembled mine in order to manufacture a fake provenance. I'm satisfied that the provenance would have held up if it had been questioned when the coin passed through Customs on its way to me. (Once a coin is successfully imported, I don't think anybody is going after individual $100 coins or even $1000 coins on the basis that they were illegally excavated or imported.)

On the other hand, as a second example, I am equally certain as a factual matter that my Roman Republican denarius of M. Herennius,
Crawford 308/1b (depicting Pietas on the obverse and either one of the Catanaean brothers carrying his father, or Aeneas and Anchises, on the reverse), has a provenance dating back to the Stack’s Public Auction Sale, “A Collection of Ancient Roman Coins,” June 14-15, 1971, Lot 127, at p. 16. See my thread at https://www.cointalk.com/threads/roman-republican-no-55-aeneas-or-catanaean-brothers.380718/. Unfortunately, however, Lot 127 is not one of the coins illustrated in the plates to that catalog -- which, after a diligent search, I was able to find on the Internet; see https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/auctionlots?AucCoId=3&AuctionId=516472#search. So the provenance could theoretically have been faked. Even though I think that's highly unlikely, given the fact that the contents of the catalog cannot be found though Google, and someone would have to have known ahead of time that the catalog included an example of my coin in order to pick it out to cite in the first place. Absent such knowledge, it would, once again, hardly have been worth anyone's time to search randomly through 50 years of old catalogs to find an un-illustrated example of the coin that could fraudulently be attached to mine as a fake provenance. Still, though, in the absence of a catalog photograph, I'm not sure this provenance would hold up in a legal proceeding, whatever my personal certainty.

 

I should also have mentioned that most hoard provenances probably wouldn't stand up to legal scrutiny either, given the absence of any "chain of custody" evidence. I have a Valens siliqua, mintmark RB (RIC IX Rome 10c (p. 118), RSC V 91(h), Sear RCV V 19687) that was sold to me by a reputable dealer as coming from the 1887 East Harptree hoard. I can establish that there were 19 coins of this type in the hoard; see https://archive.org/details/thirdnumismatic08royauoft/page/46/mode/1up. But do I have any way of proving that this specimen is actually one of those 19 coins? No.

 

Thinking a bit more about the Blaine WA case, I can guess what may have happened:

My wife is from that part of the world (Tajikistan). There, it was common for families to have some old coins. Her family had a number of gold ones, though she thinks most were from the czars' time. In her grandmother's time they were used to pay for brides. Few families do this today, though my in-laws "suggested" a token single gold coin, to which my parents freaked.

When she came to this country, it was impossible to take them. Authorities at the airport saw on their passports that they're Jewish and moving to America, so they ordered them to strip, had them hand over all rings, and searched everywhere for anything remotely of value. My wife's parents therefore buried the coins, and someday they'll be someone else's hoard. Other artifacts, such as ancient carpets, were sold to Israeli collectors who travelled there and knew emigrants had no choice but to accept the bargain prices they offered.

However, border control in Afghanistan was probably overseen by the US, so I would hope they wouldn't allow such treatment. It was therefore probably possible for him to bring the coins.

Families often ask each other to bring things, so he was probably taking them to some friend in Canada. There, I'm guessing he was denied due to a paperwork issue that he wasn't aware of.

Coming back into the US, the coins were immediately suspect. Technically, since Afghanistan didn't approve their move, they were looted coins. In fear of what the government could do to him, the guy gladly signed away the coins in favor of being arrested and/or hiring a lawyer that he couldn't afford.

I have no idea if that's what happened, but this is one plausible version.

 

The whole question of legality is a sticky one, even for coins with a providence. The central problem is in the details. Some coins come out of old collections. Does that mean they were obtained legally by the original owners? Could they have come from looted archeological sites or exported without government approval? Perhaps, and then perhaps not. What can be proven through provenance is that a given coin was exported before the date required by law for its type. Meeting that criterion seems to satisfy the customs authorities.

There is, actually has been, a flood of new coins entering the market on a daily basis through various venues, notably eBay. Without doubt these come from hoards or individual finds. The vast majority come in with scant or no information regarding find location or date of the find. The dearth of this information is, I am sure, intentional, both on the part of the finders and the dealers selling these coins.

 

Oh Brave New World!

I would say the “central problem” here is what Arthur Marwick in 1970 called the industrialisation of history. He sought to reject a situation where historical understandings are manufactured by experts in universities and then sold to consumers, kind of like cars.

His point was that historical understanding should not be like that.

Writing of Britain in 1970 he could still say that “history belongs to everyone, that is its strength, not its weakness”.

That all coins should belong to state authorised experts is merely a corollary of this ongoing and now deeply entrenched industrialisation.

Such that mentioning the matter today seems like whistling in the dark

Rob T