For coin collector, it's all about change

weresteve

For coin collector, it's all about change
The decision to restrict imports of ancient money from Cyprus results in a lawsuit by a Missouri man.
By ROB HOTAKAINEN
The Star’s Washington correspondent
Posted on Fri, Dec. 07, 2007
WASHINGTON | Heads, Wayne Sayles is overreacting. Tails, the State Department is.

Sayles, a south Missouri coin collector and dealer, is suing the Washington bureaucracy. He insists its unprecedented decision to restrict imports of ancient coins of Cyprus is "a major offensive" against collectors like him.

Coins from the Mediterranean island represent less than 1 percent of the market for collectors. Sayles said he did not own any.

Nevertheless, for the 64-year-old Republican, it’s "the Pearl Harbor of the cultural property war."

In July, the State Department banned Cypriot coinage dating from the end of the sixth century B.C. (when Rome was a small town and the Jews were abducted by the Babylonians) to 235 A.D.

At a ceremony in Washington, Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said the move would help Cyprus battle "those who would plunder its heritage and seek to sell that heritage illegally."

Dealers and curators must now worry that the government can detain any coin that looks Cypriot, which puts the burden on the importer to prove that an obol or tetradrachm was outside of Cyprus before the July ban went into effect. Without documentation or provenance, which most coins lack, coins could be seized even if they’ve been away for centuries.

In recent years, cultural artifacts have been returned to their home countries after they were found to be looted and sold. Governments, archaeologists, museum directors, art dealers and collectors are struggling to sort out how to tell when cultural treasures are on the market illegally.

The Archaeological Institute of America, the oldest and largest archaeological group in the nation, believes the Cypriot approach is correct.

"The looting of coins from archaeological sites is a significant problem throughout the world, and especially on the island of Cyprus," C. Brian Rose, the group’s president wrote to the State Department.

As if he were speaking directly to Sayles, Andreas Kakouris, the ambassador of the Republic of Cyprus to the U.S., had a message: "It may be your hobby, but it’s our heritage."

As a crossroads for emperors, wine traders and pirates, Cyprus has an especially rich trove. The mints of the island continued to turn out coins even after the island was wrapped in the arms of Rome.

Sayles, a Gainesville man who has been collecting for 40 years, is particularly interested in Roman provincial coins of the city of Anazarbus in Cilicia, part of what is now southern Turkey. His wife, Doris, likes to collect coins from the Phoenician city of Dora on what is now Israel’s coast.

Not a Cypriot coin between them. So why …?

"In a world where globalism is not just a trend but an irreversible fact of life, how can anyone justify turning America into an island of prohibition for something as innocuous as a common coin?" asked Sayles, head of the Ancient Coin Collectors Guild, an advocacy group for private collectors and independent scholars that he founded in 2004.

Asked for comment, State Department spokesman Rob McInturff said, "We generally don’t talk about open litigation."

Actually, the department’s closed-mouth aspect is part of the problem. The suit accuses the government of operating with "a veil of secrecy over basic information."

Filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, the suit has two other plaintiffs: the International Association of Professional Numismatists of Brussels, Belgium, and the Professional Numismatists Guild of Fallbrook, Calif. Citing the federal Freedom of Information Act, they urge the court to force release of "meaningful information to the public about the unprecedented imposition of import restrictions on ancient coins of Cypriot types."

Armen Vartian, an attorney representing the California group, said the lawsuit was aimed at making sure that the State Department was acting independently and not simply rubberstamping requests made by foreign governments. Without a legal challenge, he said, import restrictions could spread with no explanation.

"We’re just trying to make sure that the scales aren’t tipped any further against commerce than they already are," Vartian said.

Critics of the State Department point to similar cases involving antiquities from Italy and China. The lawsuit also wants documents related to a May 2004 request from China. It wants U.S. imports of a wide range of art and artifacts, including coins, stopped. Because of fierce reaction from museum curators, art dealers, auction houses and collectors, State Department action on Beijing’s petition has been repeatedly delayed.

Sayles said that other countries prohibited the export and transfer of coins but that only the U.S. imposed import restrictions. He said that much of the world had considered coins to be "utilitarian objects," not works of art.

To press his case, Sayles has lined up backing from Sen. Kit Bond of Missouri. "It’s easy for governments to just say ‘stop everything,’ but that just doesn’t make any sense," Vartian said. "Foreign governments, quite correctly, are worried about people plundering stuff. But they tend to respond to those things by hitting the fly with the sledgehammer."

To reach Rob Hotakainen, call 202-383-0009 or send e-mail to rhotakainen@mcclatchydc.com.

sumnom

I am not sure what to think about this. I don't have any problem with imposing an import ban but the retroactive impostion of such a banis more than a little problematic. I'd like to see what others think.

cladking

<< <i> "It may be your hobby, but it’s our heritage." >>




This is the weakest argument I've ever heard for stealing my damn coins!!!

They want to make a law against taking coins out that's fine but when they
take things that don't belong to them it is stealing.

sumnom

This article suggests that there will only be an import ban. There is nothing about seizing coins already in the country.

sumnom

Here is another good article on the import ban and the law suit. Again, I don't see anything here about seizing coins already in the country.

sumnom

From the New York Times, just in case you don't wont to register...

By JEREMY KAHN

Published: November 17, 2007

Three organizations representing coin collectors and dealers have filed a lawsuit against the State Department demanding greater disclosure of how the government makes decisions on the import of ancient artifacts from abroad.

The suit, filed jointly on Thursday by the three groups in Federal District Court in Washington, asserts that the State Department violated the Freedom of Information Act when it failed to release documents that the coin collectors had sought concerning recent decisions in which the State Department either considered or imposed import restrictions on ancient coins. The documents involve trade between the United States and Italy, China and the Republic of Cyprus.

If the coin collectors prevail, the State Department may be compelled to shed more light on the way it makes decisions on protecting the cultural property of other nations, a process that many art dealers, museum directors and collectors argue has been unnecessarily shrouded in secrecy.

The information sought from the State Department includes documents related to a May 2004 request from China that the United States restrict the import of a vast array of art and artifacts, including coins, dating from Chinese prehistory through the early 20th century. The State Department has repeatedly delayed action on the Chinese petition in the face of strong opposition from museum curators, art dealers, auction houses and collectors.

The Chinese request is supported by archaeologists, however, who believe that the antiquities market and the trade in ancient coins encourage the pillage of important historical sites.

The lawsuit also follows a controversial decision by the State Department in July to ban imports of ancient coins from Cyprus. It was the first time the government had barred trade in a broad category of ancient coins, and collectors and dealers were surprised. Archaeologists, who often use coins to help them date finds, supported that ban on the grounds that treasure hunters using metal detectors to search for coins frequently damage significant sites.

The coin collectors described their lawsuit as a last resort, taken only after the State Department ignored Freedom of Information Act requests over the last three years, as well as unsuccessful efforts by two Republican members of Congress, Representative John Culberson of Texas and Senator Christopher S. Bond of Missouri, to persuade the State Department to divulge more about its decision making.

“We have tried every other step,” said Wayne G. Sayles, executive director of the Ancient Coin Collectors Guild, one of the groups bringing the suit. “We are not getting any transparency in the process, and we need that transparency to make sure our position is considered and that our rights are maintained.” The other two plaintiffs are the International Association of Professional Numismatists and the Professional Numismatists Guild.

Darlene Kirk, a spokeswoman for the State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, said that as a matter of policy, the department would not comment on a pending lawsuit.

Peter K. Tompa, a lawyer who serves as president of the Ancient Coin Collectors Guild and has represented collectors before a committee that advises the State Department on the antiquities trade, said that if the lawsuit succeeds, it may yield evidence that will allow the coin collectors to challenge the ban on Cypriot coin imports.

Mr. Tompa said the collectors suspected that the State Department had imposed the restriction on coins against the advice of its own Cultural Property Advisory Committee — and perhaps in violation of the procedures established by a 1983 law governing cultural property protection. They want the State Department to release documents that could prove or disprove this assertion.