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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;DonnaML, post: 5408313, member: 110350&quot;]Thanks, [USER=97383]@Al Kowsky[/USER]. I&#039;m sure you&#039;re right, but I can still be nostalgic about Royal Athena, even though I&#039;ve hardly purchased anything from them in the last 20 years.</p><p><br /></p><p>I&#039;m sure you&#039;re also right that continuing rent obligations during a time when revenue must have declined precipitously, despite their online presence, must have played a role in the decision to close. Just as it has for innumerable other businesses. Randy Hixenbaugh, the dealer I mentioned above who&#039;s liquidating at least part of the Royal Athena inventory and who&#039;s been one of my other primary sources for antiquities over the years, was fortunate enough to decline to renew his lease downtown in December 2019 because it was getting too expensive. Perhaps unfortunately, he moved into a new storefront further uptown in January 2020, just before the pandemic hit. The dealers with no brick-and-mortar stores have presumably been affected the least.</p><p><br /></p><p>In the interest of promoting a dealer whom I know and like, here&#039;s a link to the Hixenbaugh website: <a href="https://www.hixenbaugh.net/" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.hixenbaugh.net/" rel="nofollow">https://www.hixenbaugh.net/</a>.&nbsp; There are many beautiful -- and expensive! -- artifacts depicted. Have his prices gone up in the last year? Possibly.</p><p><br /></p><p>Speaking of the antiquities trade, there was an interesting article in the Smithsonian Magazine yesterday (see <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/congress-increase-regulations-antiquities-trade-us-180976712/" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/congress-increase-regulations-antiquities-trade-us-180976712/" rel="nofollow">https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/congress-increase-regulations-antiquities-trade-us-180976712/</a>) about the new provisions of the Bank Secrecy Act extending its disclosure provisions (intended to deter money laundering) to antiquities dealers -- but not yet to the entire art market, which allegedly constitutes &quot;the largest legal unregulated market in the United States&quot; according to a U.S. Senate report last year about Russian oligarchs using shell companies to buy art . </p><p><br /></p><p>I didn&#039;t notice any specific mention of coin dealers in the article.</p><p><br /></p><p>Of course, antiquities dealers are not in favor of the new regulations. The article quotes the same Randall Hixenbaugh:</p><p><br /></p><p>&quot;[M]any in the art world argue that accusations of money-laundering in the antiquities trade are overblown. &#039;Virtually all transactions of high-dollar amounts in the ancient art business are handled through financial institutions and instruments already covered by the Bank Secrecy Act,&#039; Randall A. Hixenbaugh, the president of the <a href="https://www.acpcp.net/" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.acpcp.net/" rel="nofollow">American Council for the Preservation of Cultural Property</a> [a pro-dealer and collector group], tells the <i>Times</i>. &#039;Criminals seeking to launder ill-gotten funds could hardly pick a worse commodity than antiquities.&#039;</p><p><br /></p><p>Many antiquities dealers have opposed the new regulations. Some continue to call for reduced or scaled regulations, arguing that the financial and logistical burdens of federal oversight will place undue stress on small businesses, as the Art Dealers Association of America (ADAA) notes in a statement accessed by <i>artnet News</i>.</p><p><br /></p><p>&#039;The new regulations raise questions about the cost benefit balance of compliance,&#039; writes O’Donnell [an analyst for <i>Art Law Report</i>].</p><p><br /></p><p>&#039;But leave no doubt after last year’s Senate report,&#039; he adds, &#039;that regulators have the art market in their sights and the market must respond if it wants to have a say in the oversight that is sure to come.&#039;”</p><p><br /></p><p>Here&#039;s another article with further details, suggesting that extension of the Bank Secrecy Act to art dealers in general is inevitable: <a href="https://news.artnet.com/art-world/what-will-stricter-us-oversight-of-the-antiquities-trade-look-like-1935081" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://news.artnet.com/art-world/what-will-stricter-us-oversight-of-the-antiquities-trade-look-like-1935081" rel="nofollow">https://news.artnet.com/art-world/what-will-stricter-us-oversight-of-the-antiquities-trade-look-like-1935081</a>. I imagine that that would include coin dealers, assuming that they&#039;re not already covered by the provisions on antiquities dealers.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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