Ancient coins intercepted in Chicago returned to Greece.

The video made me laugh. For me, there is no moral reason, for the government to take by force, someone's ancient coins or ancient artifacts, or to send ancient coins or ancient artifacts to any country. For me, all cultures and artifacts belong to all people, no matter where you live, and no matter where you were born, and no matter who your ancestors are. I would prefer to live in a world, where cultural property, and intellectual property, don't exist. That's just my personal preference.
However, the video, and other horror stories, have made me more nervous, about buying ancient coins, from sellers in countries outside of my country.

 

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I agree within your own country now has a higher priority due to low knowledge customs workers. Knock on wood I have not lost a package from overseas yet, but agree I buy from US firms if possible first, or in other words pay more at US auctions due to less risk.

 

If ancient coins from Antioch are actually found in mint state in England (in which context?), it should be published in an academic article. Seriously. It is an important information for numismatists and all historians of ancient trade and economy.

 

Very respectfully too
Nice coins, the kind that makes the collector's pride, are rarely random lost coins. I had myself the opportunity of finding random lost coins: they are almost always worn and corroded small bronzes. Or, rarely, very worn silver. I never heard of a random lost gold piece. The Bible explains this very well : Luke 15:8-10.

Nice coins, not corroded, patinated, are most often found in tombs (where the coin was well-protected, a tomb being a time-capsule) or in hoards. The amount of information provided by a tomb or a hoard is enormous, but it is lost forever when some lucky guy digs the tomb without any care just to pocket the metallic objects, and in haste, not to be seen digging there... When hoards are discovered they are immediately dispersed, all information they could carry being lost.

Maybe all collectors do not look at coins the same way... Let's consider this AE antoninianus of Victorinus :

Nice specimen, not really outstanding. If sold it would be worth USD 35.00 to 50.00... not more. Provenance? Who cares, for such a common piece? But this coin is actually exceptional: it has been discovered in U Thong, Thailand.

 

It was found in a pot fairly near, (within a kilometer) of an ancient fort. It was properly declared to the county coroner and the finder obtained permission to bring to the states. He postulated it was a soldier who got transferred from the East.

I am aware of the desire of publication of hoards and locations academically, (I am also a doctor in business), and would also like to see it. However, continental laws work against this. Best would be to have laws like the UK and Israel where the landowners own what is found on their land with the government having first right of refusal. Everyone wins in this situation except for tyrant governments.

 

Agree that we would all like provenance. See post earlier. Be careful though of unusual ones. Way too many archeologists make wild leaps based upon coin finds. I remember an archeologist trying to claim Africans had trade routes with Australia based on a few medieval coins found there.

I am actually somewhat an expert in Thailand, owning one of the larger collections of pre-Rama VI, (and thousands of post ones as well), collections in the States. I can tell you that coin would simply have no value in Thailand. They NEVER had copper coinage, so would have had no coinage desirability in the nation. All Thai coinage until the 1860's was silver, tin, and lead, (matching the metals found in local mines). Even gold coinage was not known except for the Malaysian influenced Far South. My opinion would be it was lost by a more modern French or English trader who had it as a collectible.

 

The same law exists in most Western countries. In France it is Article 716 of the Code Civil written by that good old Napoleon...
The problem is that 75% of this planet is under tyrant governments, and that archaeological looting is skyrocketing due to the use of modern metal detectors... What can be done, then?

 

Not much, under a tyrannical government.

 

I truly do commiserate about looting of antiquities. However, Treasure Trove law in the UK works well. Many time important sites can be identified, digs begun, from the information the coroners compile from voluntary disclosures. To persecute a farmer tilling up a hoard of coins, and giving them zero percent incentive to work with the government, simply works against all human nature. Emulate UK laws and collectors benefit, archeologists benefit, land owners benefit. The only losers, like I said before, are those who pilfer government property for their own personal gain, as well as all humanity by the information that will be lost.

Do not punish landowners, economically incent them, for best long term results. Capitalism may suck to some, but it is better than all other economic methods ever tried, just like Democracy is the worst form of government except for all others.

 

My estimate on the whole collection is maybe $1,300. The Macedonian tet is apparently the biggest & best coin and that's not a particularly good one.

It may even be Burke that bought the lot as Chicago is his address. Also, the Chicago Coin Club is noted for being one's of this nation's best and most educational.

It could be a dealer's lot: bought for resale.

Everybody agrees that the UK Treasure Trove law works best. I asked about this at an academic coin congress.

I think the answer given was that yes it works, but it takes some political will to execute. It may be that some government official somewhere enjoys getting 100% of the confiscated coins. Even tho it results in most of the coins not being declared and winding up on the black market.

With this collection, it'll either end up being stuck in a basement or gotten by a government employee. Like the Univ of Chicago Educational Coin Collection formed around 1880-1900? many of the coins were exposed to moisture and were corroding.

Even in the famous Boden Museum, one of Europe's best numismatic museums, the coins are not properly cared for.

 

This is the tactic used to justify the law.
Governments shouldn't be able to steal the wealth of honest folk who own the land,
Laws and dictorial amendments to them are only made to make someone else wealthy.
I do get your point of heritage, but whose heritage is it. Yours or theirs?

 

Very cool provenance, I would want to know. I believe that collectors do this better than the University's, it's not a job to us. You all share your collections with me all the time. I get History in the morning, and some gabbing till the next time.

Exactly they can match the highest bid, and Honestly, If I have to sell it twice they better want to pay another premium the same they charge me on everyday life. Call it 15%. Otherwise, I got the buyer on hold, with his word and a credit card on file.

 

The discussion will not lead to a conclusion. Years from now it will be the same. Also, museums liquidate items from time to time or they sit in a drawer to be cataloged at some point in the future, maybe. Finding a coin and keeping it does not mean a part of history has been tampered with. It means some person dropped it long ago. His loss is my gain. Archaeology digs are a different story.

I wonder how many people would turn in a coin at Kalkriese for example. Your walking along and you see a glint of yellow on the ground. You bend over and pick up an Aureus……Do you keep it, I wonder..

 

Anyone with common sense for keep for their own collection/ I sure would

 

I think the loot from Spanish galleons is still the property of the Spanish crown, or may be claimed by the country in the territorial waters of which the wreck is located. I'm not sure, but I know laws have been passed in many countries about this.

 

Seriously, if I was walked along at Kalkriese, noticed a yellow spot on the ground and picked up an aureus, I would immediately hand it over to the local Kalkriese museum. Seriously, this is what I would do. Not only this aureus belongs in the public collection of all artefacts from this famous battlefield, but its precise find spot could lead the archaeologists to a promising sector they had not excavated yet.
In 2016 it happened in Israel. A hiker visiting an archaeological site discovered a aureus, a very rare one (2 specimen only known before this one). It was immediately turned in to the Israel Antiquities Authority.
https://www.coinworld.com/news/world-coins/hiker-in-israel-discovers-rare-gold-aureus-of-trajan.html

 

Maybe/ just maybe those US "Agents" should pay a visit to the Smithsonian Museum complex and return all their "so called artifacts" which belong to other Countries of origin. Lets start with the "Hope" diamond/ it was legally bought by a French jeweller/ ended up in the French Crown jewels. So/ it either belongs to India or France. Ditto for UK museums/ Elgin Marbles? Then, we have the Hermitage/ other Russian museums full of stuff looted by the Soviets. Museums are the biggest culprits in this/ yet big government is blind to that and confiscates material from "us".

 

You kind of illustrate my point about laws sir. Israel is one of the few countries where finders of property have to be reimbursed, so they report the information, and we all win. Same scenario in all countries surrounding Israel would have most likely led to the finder pocketing the piece, and that very information lost.

 

No, I'm serious. Nobody wants the Smithsonian to give back the Hope diamond to anybody. Most of the artefacts that are on display at the Louvre, the Hermitage, the British Museum and so on are rightfully there, and no serious people want their repatriation.
The Elgin marbles are a special case. At the time Lord Elgin snatched them in Athens, he had no right (legal or moral) to do so. He had no authorization from the Ottoman government to dismantle the still standing ruins of the Parthenon and the Erechtheion, but he just bribed the local officer in charge. This was already seen as a disgrace in the early 1800s by many in Britain. Same thing for the Codex Sinaiticus (a Greek Bible on parchment copied in the mid 4th c. AD) which is the property of the Saint Catherine monastery in the Sinai, had been lent (not sold or given) to the Tsar for a limited period and dishonestly sold to the British Museum by the Soviet government after the Tsar had been toppled. In any world country, if you buy stolen goods, you are not considered their rightful owner. Same for the Benin Bronzes, artistic bronzes of the 16th-18th c. that decorated the palace of the king of Benin and were plundered by the British troops in 1897. That's plain war pillaging, all these bronzes must be returned to Nigeria, heir of the Benin Kingdom, w/o any discussion.
Would you consider the works of art confiscated from collectors who had the silly idea of being Jewish by the Nazis and sold to museums or private collectors since should not be handed over to their previous owner's families?
This is a civilized world and there are laws everybody, even states and governments, must abide. The antiquities market is legal, as long as selling and buying antiquities is legal at the time it is done. The Mona Lisa, for example, was bought (and not cheap!) by the king of France from Leonardo da Vinci himself. Thus nobody can discuss the fact this picture now belongs to the French state. Digging ancient sites, selling artefacts or ancient coins was perfectly legal until laws protecting the national heritage were passed in almost every country from the 19th to the late 20th c. This means that trading ancient coins is legal and legitimate if they were first bought at a time when it was not illegal. That's all. If extremely rare coins never seen before suddenly surface on the international market without any provenance, it is obvious that they come from an illegal digging or appropriation. The auction should be vetoed by the authorities, an investigation made to find their actual provenance, and they should be handed over to their legitimate owner.

 

Nonsense