Do you own a Cuneiform tablet? read this.

Wonder where artifacts come from? Own any? If you bought from this dealer, you may need to relinquish your purchase...because they are smugglers.

Hobby Lobby Agrees to Forfeit 5,500 Artifacts Smuggled Out of Iraq

https://nyti.ms/2tNDe4S

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

The link cant be found

 

Hmmm. I added another that works.

 

That's interesting, From what I read they new fully what they were doing.

 

I just read where Hobby Lobby was fined for illegally importing artifacts from the Middle East. Wonder if there is a connection?

 

The privately held company is returning the 5,500 artifacts they purchased for $1,600,000 and pay the US government $3,000,000 to make the charges go away.

The prosecutor said the artifacts were smuggled. They were marked as "tile samples" or as "clay or ceramic tiles". The packages had labels falsely identifying their country of origin as Turkey not Iraq.

Please remember this next time you receive a package containing coins declared as "metal tokens" without a true value or origin on the customs form. My understanding is that imported coins should be labeled as numismatic antiques, with the origin set to the minting place, and the true value declared on the customers paperwork.

I agree that shipping costs and risks of theft may rise when packages are declared correctly on the CN-22. Yet if customs forms are not specific prosecutors consider it smuggling. Be aware.

 

Because it is.........

 

Hi Ed, why would the origin be the place of minting? I am not familiar with relevant laws but would it not make more sense to be the place it was discovered?

 

Read the Hobby Lobby this AM in my local paper.
What were they doing with these antiquities? Clearly not reselling them to customers on the retail level.
Who were they supplying these smuggled artifacts to?

 

They were planning to use them to stock some sort of Bible museum: https://nyti.ms/2jYKv9E

 

I am not a lawyer. I have read the Cultural Property Memorandums of Understanding (MOUs) and they talk of "Coins of Cypriot type" etc. My understanding is that if you have a coin minted in Cyprus the shipper is supposed to give the origin as Cyprus. Otherwise how would Customs know what to inspect more closely?

According to some guidelines provided by the IAPN on coins from Egypt there is a note http://www.iapn-coins.org/catalog/product/getDocument/id/6420/ "[US] Customs has reverted back to restrictions based on place of manufacture rather than find spot."

Maybe I am wrong. I know that I feel much more confident when the German shipper of an Asia Minor type gives the origin as TR (Turkey) not DE (Germany). Until there is a court case there won't be a precedent. This case won't set a precedent because it was settled out of court.

 

Yes, I should have been more specific....specifically have you bought from the Greens.

Read below............

https://www.justice.gov/usao-edny/p...it-thousands-ancient-iraqi-artifacts-imported

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/01/can-hobby-lobby-buy-the-bible/419088/

 

Herein lies the problem with many of the MoUs. A coin may be minted in Rome and found in England. Why should such a coin be identified as Italian on its import documents? Trade coins circulated throughout the ancient world and are found in many modern jurisdictions.

 

For anyone who is not a member of the Ancient Coin Collectors Guild, I recommend joining very highly. They have a great deal of information on these topics, and they are leading the action to have the U.S. government be reasonable as it deals with importing ancient coins and artifacts. No one thinks that rarities and cultural treasures should be allowed to leave their countries of origin; but no valid purpose is served by restricting the importing of ancient items that were made by the tens and even hundreds of thousands. The U.S. government seems to have some difficulties making the distinction, and ACCG has been working diligently to protect both important archeological treasures and American museums, universities and collectors.

 

I totally agree with you. The problem is that the rules are uncertain.

It would be nice to get some data on how many packages US customs opens, and how they are inspected, and what documentation is required. How often they go missing.

I propose an experiment. Let us find some $10-value coins minted in MOU countries and sold by the numismatic trade before 2000. (These should be legal to ship and not require payment of duty.) Let's send them back and forth between the US and another country with variations of the CN-22 and variations of the Customs forms suggested by the IAPN inside the envelopes. We can record statistics and publish our findings.

I am based in the US.

 

In a perverted way, the smuggling probably sved those items from being destroyed. Unfortunately many more items did not escape and were erased from history by ISIS.

 

I guess this means that the trade goods items found in the US and Canada previously thought of as American Indian artifacts but actually what they received in trade for furs will have to be returned to France and England where they were produced. Early ships beginning with Columbus brought a variety of trade goods: trinkets, iron knives, guns, kettles, hatchets, broadcloth and beads by the million. Coins are the definition of trade goods and expected to travel where the economy dictates. Roman Imperial coins minted in Syria and found in England may never even have passed through Italy.

If we declare invalid trade between governments and cultures no longer in existence in their original form, we open a giant can of worms. Certainly this is a matter of current/modern politics not cultural rights. Who knows who will control any of these nations/regions next?

 

You may have a problem gathering your staistics because of sample size.
When I was selling on ebay I sold over 40,000 antique and collectable items including coins, probably half of them to the USA (from Britain). That was up to 10,000 packages, allowing for multiple lot packets, it is improbable there were less than 5000 packets.
Only one customer ever reported any interest from US customs, this was on an item that I had referred to as an 'Old Claw Brooch' (a fairly common silver mounted grouse claw). This was read as an Owl Claw Brooch and it took 3 months for the relevant Gov. dept. to decided it was not an owl, not a threatened species, and the buyer told me it was delivered by hand by a game warden. He was somewhat surprised, I had already refunded him, but he was happy to pay again. I said don't bother, it was all my fault for sloppy hand writing.
To get back to the point, my practical experience was that at least between 1998 and 2010, customs interest in small imports was not extending to actually opening anything. It may take thousands of your experimental mailings to establish anything.

How about Freedon of Information requests instead, asking about coins, customs and seizures for example? I have no idea how US FoI laws work, but someone must do.

 

Wayne Sayles has already done this long ago, though I dont know if he published results or how many times for that matter.

And that is the underlying issue nobody wants to address. If they stayed in Iraq (assuming the article is accurate and that is where they came from) they likely would not have survived in the first place. Ironically, when rich Americans get into these situations and start buying antiquities the items typically turn out to be fake anyway.

Ed, you may be a bit obsessed with the CN-22. Its not the only customs form. In fact computer based postage printing only records the bare minimum of information required by law. Country of origin is NOT one of those items. Value is the more important factor.

This quote from the article illustrates how truly ignorant these people really are:

“American collectors and importers must ensure compliance with laws and regulations that require truthful declarations to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, so that Customs officers are able to scrutinize cultural property crossing our borders and prevent the inappropriate entry of such property,” stated Acting United States Attorney Rohde."

Just how am I going to get some other individual, in another country, write in another language a honest customs declaration? Nobody has control in that manner.

 

Gold double eagle and old coin are equally true.
How do the rules deal with just exactly how true the declaration must be?

My second rule for life has been never tell the government anything that they could use to my disadvantage