I haven't seen anyone else post this, so I thought I would do so. It includes summaries of each person's oral testimony, and links to the written testimony they submitted on behalf of themselves and their respective organizations. Judging from this post, the speakers made a very persuasive case that the MOU with Italy should not even be renewed, let alone extended to cover later Republican as well as Imperial coins. I'm quite concerned that all of it will fall on deaf ears, because minds are already made up. As the quoted comment of one of the archaeologists on the Committee -- that "ancient coin collectors should collect something else" -- makes clear is the case at least for him. https://culturalpropertyobserver.blogspot.com/2020/07/cpac-meets-to-discuss-renewals-of.html
I did read that and it was a good summary. That specific comment you mention really fired me up and I've thought about it many times since. What an a-hole that guy must be. Almost like telling him all he is allowed to eat is tofu and nothing else for the rest of his life just because it offends me that he would enjoy eating something else. What a d-bag.
Hoping it will be resolved in favor of collectors (obviously). With regard to the deaf ears part, I'm afraid you may be correct Donna.
If the CPAC decides against collectors, is that the final word? Or does the State Department still have to approve the Commitee's decision?
Not making things political, but it's too bad this issue isn't something big enough for Trump to care about. I have a feeling he would tell Italy to get bent on these restrictions. Which would be great and also hilarious.
I think people in other EU countries, at least, could still buy coins from Italy. And remember that this would extend well beyond coins found in Italy: it would prevent the importation of Roman coins into the USA (at least from Italy; I'm not sure if it applies to importation from other countries) regardless of where they were found, unless it were possible to document the provenance of a given coin back to a date before 1909, proving that it wasn't dug up after that year. In any country. (There was testimony at the meeting that more than 97% of Roman coins that have been found in hoards were found outside Italy. By the logic of the proposed MOU, any ancient Greek coins or artifacts found in Italy should actually be considered Greek cultural patrimony, not Italian!)
Something else that infuriated me was the testimony pointing out that the three largest collections of Roman coins in Italian museums each totals more than one million coins. The overwhelming majority of which are sitting in storage and have never even been catalogued, let alone put online for scholars to study. There's enough there to keep scholars busy for another 10 lifetimes without needing to prevent people from collecting ancient coins. We're not talking the Elgin Marbles here.
It's fascinating the types of opinions one will run into once you stray outside of collector circles. Start posting ancient coins on other sites, and you'll get pelted with all sorts of colorful accusations from the anti-collector crowd. I once saw a Redditor get called a destroyer of cultural heritage for sharing a rather ordinary Marcus Aurelius denarius that they bought online. People were saying things like, "If you had any respect, you would buy the replicas and leave the real thing to the experts." Another time, I observed some impressive mental gymnastics as someone argued over a posting of a Julian II / Vota AE3 that was dug up by someone ploughing their own field. I pointed out that it is about as common as common coins go, to which the self-identified archeology student replied that the OP probably just destroyed evidence of an ancient road that once ran across his farm. Just can't win with some people.
I liked your post only for information. Actually, I didn't like what you said because it is probably true and sources will dry up soon. Thanks for getting the information to us.
I'm not certain, but I doubt there'll be a decision from CPAC prior to the election. So the final determination may be made by the next administration, whichever it is. And please don't make assumptions about which party is pro-free trade these days and which isn't!
Oh I'm not making assumptions along party lines. I just think that Trump as a person likes telling people to get bent on things, so if it was an issue he cared about he would have no problem telling people (particularly the Italians and anti collector base) to get bent on it. Which I would find highly satisfying in this particular scenario.
If you were to buy a lot of uncleaned coins from, say Bulgaria, how would anyone be able to say they are Roman until they were cleaned?
I am sure that I do not know the answer to your question. I do know that some covered coins leave Italy with export papers. Extending coverage to other coins will not prevent exports, but will add a hurdle. I have several in a stack on the lower shelf of my book case.
A link to the very lengthy written testimony submitted by the Committee for Cultural Policy, a pro-collector organization: https://culturalpropertynews.org/italy-wants-20-year-art-blockade-expanded-to-2025/ .
We should offer Italy a deal. We will return to Italy all our coins minted there the day after Italy returns to Egypt ALL the obelisks found in the many piazzas of Rome , looted from Egypt by Augustus, Caligula, etc.
Arturo Russo's testimony was excellent and deserves being reproduced here in full: Arturo Russo (International Association of Professional Numismatists) speaks for the premier professional trade association for coin dealers. He starts his statement with a Latin maxim, “pacta sunt servanda” which roughly translates as “bargains are to be observed.” He notes that after the initial MOU with Italy in 2001, Italy did as promised make it easier to export Italian cultural goods, including coins. However, since import restrictions were first imposed on coins in 2011, it has become increasingly difficult to obtain export permits, and today it is almost impossible to get such permits for even low value and common ancient coins. Last year, Italian authorities published regulations that state that you cannot even apply for an export license unless you can prove that an archeological object is outside of the ground before 1909, the date of Italy’s first cultural patrimony law. Italy has over twenty different export offices and luckily some of them don’t enforce this regulation, as quite rightly, they do not consider coins in trade to be archeological items. On the other hand, other offices, like that in Milan, apply this regulation in a very stringent manner, and require proof of provenance before 1909. This makes it impossible to export ancient coins, because only few coins have a provenance stretching back that far. Just to be clear, ancient coins are freely bought and sold inside Italy, but they become “illegal” and important to Italian cultural patrimony only when one applies to take them outside of Italy, which is unacceptable. The situation is so egregious that there have been cases where coins that were legally purchased by Italian collectors in US auctions prior to 1980 where not only denied an export license, but were confiscated simply on the basis of lack of provenance prior to 1909. It is worth noting that coins have been collected since the Renaissance. There are studies from prominent Italian scholars, which Mr. Russo would be happy to share, which demonstrate that coins in the market should not be treated as archaeological objects because an immense number of coins were found before 1909. Nevertheless, most of the coins do not have a documented provenance because until the recently auctions were limited to coins from highly important collections. Mr. Russo notes that in 1994 the two most prominent numismatists in Italy, Silvana Balbi De Caro and Francesco Panvini Rosati, stated that only coins documented to be from an archaeological find are of archaeological interest. In 2012, Mr. Russo’s firm, Numismatica Ars Classica, represented a group of investors that purchased and dispersed the Archer Huntington collection of coins. This large collection was assembled between the end of 19th century and 1930. The collection was property of the Hispanic Society of America and on loan to the American Numismatic Society. The vast majority of the Ancient coins in the collection did not have a documented provenance prior to 1909 and theoretically if purchased by an Italian collector, would be subject to detention and seizure if they were subsequently exported from Italy. This behaviour is clearly unacceptable. So, Mr. Russo asks that CPAC freeze the renewal of import restrictions on coins until Italy complies with its obligation to facilitate the issuance of export licenses. The current situation clearly disadvantages American collectors and institutions as coins legally owned in the States can be freely sold to Italian buyers while the same coins cannot leave Italy and be freely sold to American collectors. What makes the whole situation even more inconceivable is the fact that Italy has probably one of the largest if not the largest numismatic patrimony in the world. There are over 200 institutions that have coins and the largest museums like Naples, Rome and Turin have collections which contain over a million specimens each. Unfortunately, most of these collections are not published nor accessible through the internet with the result that they are almost completely inaccessible to the public. Mr. Russo indicates that the Italian Carabinieri do an excellent job fighting looters and he knows as a matter of fact that they do not share the belief that everything without a provenance prior to 1909 has to be considered illegal. They are fully aware that a legal and healthy market exists and must be preserved. IAPN is not against a stronger cooperation between Italian authorities and US to fight illegally excavated coins coming onto the US market, but blanket restrictions are unfair to the trade. In concluding, Mr. Russo also indicates that any effort to extend restrictions to Roman Republican and Imperial coins is simply ridiculous as it uncontested that the vast majority of these coins are found outside the boundaries of Italy. In closing, he reiterates that current restrictions should be frozen until Italy makes it easier to procure export licenses.
There's no indication that any transcript of the oral testimony at the meeting is publicly available, or even was taken. However, at the end of this summary of Mr. Russo's oral testimony (in the blog post to which I linked in the OP), there's a link to his organization's written testimony.
