Ancient coins confiscated by US customs?

I don't understand your edit: you still say that every Roman Republic coin is at risk of seizure, and that's simply not true. It's only Roman Republican coins issed before 211 BCE, i.e. before the denarius was first issued, that are at risk under those regulations. The vast majority of Roman Republican coins, issued during the period of nearly 200 years after 211 BCE but before the end of the Republic, are not presently at risk. The same is true, of course, of Imperial coins. Although they would all be at risk if the proposed new MOU with Italy, agreed to by the previous administration last year, is ever fully implemented: as reported, it would eliminate that cutoff date going forward (subject to the 10-year exception discussed above, as well as the pre-designation export exception of Section 2606(b)(2)(B)). In other words, it would be as bad as the new MOU with Turkey.

 

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This honestly seems a bit fishy to me: a group advocating the free trade of antique coins brings a group of coins into the US and - lo and behold - the coins are confiscated. That seems very convenient so they could trigger a lawsuit, and my suspicion is they achieved the reaction from customs that they desired.

As already mentioned here, if you buy the coin from any reputable international seller they'll include export license information. I've purchased about 70 coins from Europe in the last year and had issues with none of them.

I can certainly see that if you bring a small hoard of ancient coins in the US without any information on where you obtained them, customs will be alarmed. The lesson I believe is that if you do buy coins in person in Europe, make sure the dealer provides you the proper export paperwork, or just have them Fedex the coins for when you return to the States.

 

Thanks for the correction. And thanks for the link to the law.

 

I was referring to the article not the MOU.

I posted that prior to him/her posting the MOU. The article I was referencing said the coins were 1,000-2,000 years old and I was saying that every Roman Republican coin would be even older than that.

As to the MOU you’re right it doesn’t mention the late Republic.

 

But apparently they lost their lawsuit so what would be the point?

According to the article the lawsuit was summarily dismissed and US Customs kept the coins.

I wonder what they do with them? Return them to their country of origin?

Of course the US doesn’t have laws protecting our cultural heritage. It may not be as old as to be considered ancient but I mean technically Morgan Dollars are a part of American cultural heritage.

So basically we’re giving back the stuff Americans paid for while at the same foreign citizens can buy and keep whatever they want from American culture.

What’s the point? It’s basically just giving free stuff to other countries who don’t do anything in return.

 

Yesterday I saw this announcement at ma-shops:

"Due to the new UST digital pact, it is currently not possible for us to carry out and ship orders outside of Germany."

haven't googled what the UST digital pact is and if it has anything to do with cultural heritage....

 

Hmm I wonder if it’s legal for you to buy something and ship it as a private citizen? Even if coin dealers cannot as businesses.

 

Is that a general MA-Shops announcement, or an announcement by one of the dealers?

 

I don't see that you provided a link to the WSJ article. This all sounds like something that happened more than a decade ago, anyway. When was the lawsuit brought, when was it dismissed, and when was the article published?

Of course the US has laws and treaties on cultural heritage. Why would you think it doesn't? Think about Native American artifacts.

 

It's not really fishy if you understand the process in the US for challenging laws like this. You can't just sue the government to challenge the law usually, you need standing. In this case the ACCG needed the government to actually seize coins to challenge the law.

 

You’re right it was quite a while ago. 2012.

Here is the court documents themselves if you’d like to see.

https://www.ca4.uscourts.gov/Opinions/112012.P.pdf


As for Native American objects I think it’s a bit different since usually they confiscate that stuff from Americans rather than from citizens of other countries so it’s not like stealing in the sense of foreign countries taking stuff from Americans.

Also in my experience most Native American stuff doesn’t have a huge price tag like coins get.

For example an aureus of Brutus can sell for $1 million or more so if another country takes it without reimbursement they are basically stealing $1 million or more dollars from a citizen of another nation.

I don’t think I’ve seen Native American objects selling for that kind of money.

Also even modern Americans have a cultural heritage. To compare it to what other countries are doing they should start refusing to allow exportation of 1804 Proof Dollars and Double Eagles and demand the return of any American coin pre-1900 with a market value of over $5,000.

 

AFAIK, UST is Umsatzsteuer - or basically a tax.
I currently see this on only one ma-shops shop, Toenjes. Clearly, the issue is on the German side and not on the US one, because otherwise they'd ship to other countries.

I'm not sure what the actual issue is, though. I double checked the German shops I've ordered from on ma-shops (never ordered from Toenjes), and I don't see any warnings. I received coins from Germany as recently as two weeks ago.

 

I also see this announcement at only one store. I checked a number of other German stores, and there's nothing. If stores in Germany couldn't even sell ancient coins within the EU anymore, that would be a major problem for them, I think! Also, whatever the issue is with this one store, it appears to have nothing to do with cultural heritage: I see the announcement for a stamp, and a modern coin. Not ancient coins.

 

I understand this, but my point is they needed this to happen in order to file the lawsuit. I'm sure the same organization fed the story to the press. I wouldn't be surprised if they specifically called out the coins to customs, and deliberately made sure to have absolutely no provenance with them.

Therefore, it's difficult to correlate this to most of us, who buy coins from European dealers who fill out the export paperwork.

If a coin was seized from a Roma or London Ancient Coins shipment, then I'd be more concerned.

 

Native American artifacts can go for huge $$$. Here's an example of a controversial sale where one mask received $1.2 million. I'm not sure what the record is, but my understanding is they can go very high.

 

Either they didn't anticipate losing the lawsuit, or they wanted to use the lawsuit to draw attention to their cause and urge a change to the laws.

Here's one article that sheds light on it (though they were seized by the FBI and not customs). My suspicion is the destination is the same: they're placed in a warehouse where either a country will make a claim to them (doubtful in this case), or someone will eventually make a call on where they'll go, perhaps in 50 years or so

There's a bill preventing the export of native american artifacts. Here's a discussion (against) it. The American Antiquities Act also prevents the export of looted items from archeological sites.

The troll force lives strong in you.

 

Thanks @DonnaML and @kirispupis for clearing this up. I was browsing through some coins, didn't even notice the dealer; my intention was not to buy (I don't buy from overseas), but that announcement just caught my attention and made me wonder what it was about. Anyway, good to know it is about taxes and not about cultural heritage.

 

First of all I said Native American objects don’t count since it’s not the same thing.

Native American objects don’t tend to sell for a fortune like coins do.

So what the person will return the $10 Native American arrowheads they bought?

That’s different than confiscating a coin that costs tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars. Or millions.

Secondly: It’s not trolling. It’s just a fact.

If an American buys say a $10,000 Ancient Roman coin and US Customs confiscates it and gives it back to Italy that’s just basically a legalized form of theft.

If they didn’t want it to be that way they would pay reimbursement to the original buyer in exchange for the “cultural heritage” being returned.

Remember: Just because someone thinks differently from you doesn’t mean they are trolling.

 

If a coin is returned to the dealer because customs won't admit it, any reputable dealer will refund the money to the buyer. There's no "theft." Ending up in a warehouse happens with stolen artifacts with no provenance, unless and until the relevant country's government demands their return. It doesn't happen with coins bought at mainstream European auctions. Specifically with respect to Italy, coins don't leave that country legally anymore for the USA in the first place without an export permit. That's been true for years, even though you don't seem to be aware of it.

You've been setting up and knocking down a lot of straw men in this thread. And don't forget that if coins and antiquities are confiscated by U.S. Customs because they're deemed the cultural heritage of other countries, those countries aren't imposing anything unilaterally on the U.S. It's all pursuant to bilateral and multilateral treaties and MOUs to which we agreed.

Also, you're being really dismissive and disingenuous referring to "$10 arrowheads." There have been at least a couple of very controversial auctions of Native American artifacts in Paris in the last decade with total sales exceeding $1 million each. And the most expensive arrowhead ever sold brought an auction price of $276,000. Not $10. Not that it's just about dollar value anyway. I wish you'd do some research before saying some of the things you do, like there supposedly being no such thing as cultural heritage laws in the USA. You don't get to decide that Native American artifacts don't count.

 

Well I mean if the person gets a refund then you’re right there is no theft.

Knocking down straw men? What does that mean?

As for Native American artifacts not counting I was referring to not counting in terms of the discussion. I didn’t mean not counting in general. Obviously the artifacts of all cultures count as cultural heritage and that heritage should be respected.

What I meant was that the market for Native American artifacts is nowhere near as large as ancient coinage. It’s a very small market.

Yes the most expensive Native American arrowhead may have sold for $276,000 but that’s still only a tiny fraction of the ancient coin market and a small fraction of what some coins are worth.

The fact is that the two markets cannot be compared.

If it came across otherwise I apologize. I’m not trying to demean or degrade Native American objects but they aren’t really relevant in terms of what we’re talking about which is the seizure of high value coins and their return to their country of origin.

In the future I will make sure that when I write a post I explain everything I mean in detail so that nothing gets misinterpreted.