Ancient Coin Collectors Guild

A couple cigars...

 

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Currently, it's the only voice collectors have at meetings of the State Department committee that makes recommendations on these MoUs. Unless you plan to start attending and speaking-up at those meetings, the answer to your question is "yes".

 

If you had collected 20 years ago you would see many differences besides the internet. Sellers from the "Middle East" used to come to US shows with big bags (literally) of coins buyers could sort through. Many Europeans dealers, large and especially small, could bring large lots of coins and not worry about customs and legality they way they do now. Many worry so much that most just decline to come. I have heard of European dealers who have tried to bring coins in for a show and having the coins held so long at customs to be looked at that they missed the entire show, plus they had the hassle and expense. Who would try that twice?

Even Canadian dealers do not want to have to document everything they bring in and take out--it is easier just not to come to the US. My last lot from Europe came FedEx and I was charged by FedEx $32 additional because customs wanted to look at it. FedEx said their part was $7 and "duties" were $25 (This is on a coin which is not dutiable--but what could I do?).

Twenty years ago there were no MOUs for Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Egypt, and Bulgaria. Sellers in Israel did not have to get permission to ship abroad the way they do now for individual lots (even those that have no chance of being of cultural importance to Israel.) Germany's new "cultural heritage" law is incredibly draconian. Can anything, say a postage stamp, really need to be classified as "cultural heritage" and subject to export restrictions just because is it 75 years old?

Minnesota has enacted remarkably restrictive laws about selling bullion such that, if the law is read literally, dealers would have to declare the amount of silver in each ancient coin they sell. One vcoins dealer moved out of Minnesota--his protests and requests that exceptions be made for at least ancient coins feel on deaf legislative ears.

Individual collectors have alternatives. They can decide they are small fry and it all doesn't matter enough. They can decide the movement is too big to fight and there is no point. They can decide that this whole "cultural property" thing has gone too far and want to help fight it. Hence the ACCG.

Do you know any other organization that takes the time to send a representative lawyer to government meetings on MOUs? That testifies in favor of collecting? That makes the argument that coins of Antioch (formerly in ancient Syria, but now in Turkey) are not "cultural property" that must be returned to Syria?

I have a close friend who spent a day identifying the mints of many junk late Roman ancient coins for the Feds because they had been confiscated as illegal imports from Syria (the seller was in Dubai and had been in Lebanon [in ancient Syria] before). The Feds showed up at my friend's department, knowing he was an expert, and spent a day going through the coins to identify the mints. Why? So they could return them to their country of origin!

Take a look at those coins which our customs people treated as important and "illegally imported":
https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/ice-cbp-seize-illegally-imported-ancient-roman-coins
I was amazed they would brag about it on their website (The article mentions "$1000. My friend said he would not have paid $10 for the whole batch.)
Is this a good way for the Feds to spend our money? These people are supposed to be our crime fighters!

This is new. It is a worrying trend. It is gaining ground fast. Our government is complicit. It is our government. It is worth it to me to support a rational voice in Washington.

https://committeeforculturalpolicy....in-us-to-seize-and-forfeit-cultural-property/

 

Thank you for that sobering report, @Valentinian. The ICE "bust" you linked is utterly dumbfounding. Taxpayer dollars for such pointless activities? I experienced a wave of nausea when reading that article.

 

Yeah, @Valentinian I'm not convinced at all, so much so that I did not just sign up for a membership:

Scary story, man. The stuff of nightmares for us collectors.

 

Just joined up.

I vaguely recall hearing a conversation at the NYINC that this may be the last year they are allowed to sell antiques at the show. Not sure if its true or its in the process of been approved. But it sucks nonetheless, not sure if it will affect online sales within the U.S. if it does happen.

 

Pretty much everything the ACCG does gets an entry on there web page http://www.accg.us/home.aspx . You can learn all about them there. Usually I go to their presentation at the New York International coin show to hear about recent and upcoming regulations but this year I had to miss it.

For your $35 you might get a newsletter once a year in the mail. I received five emails from them in 2016. One was asking me to renew, one asked for donations, one announced the new board, two suggested I comment on US government web sites that I didn't want new restrictions on coins.