Geography

A Coin Dealer's Imagination of the Geography of the Ancient World: "It was The Communists Wot Dunnit"

http://paul-barford.blogspot.com/2013/10/a-coin-dealers-imagination-of-geography.html
by Paul Barford

Dave Welsh comes to the succour of his new friends, the metal detectorists (The Detectorist Connection Sunday, October 13, 2013). He suggests that metal detector users and other artefact digger are not to blame for the supply of large numbers of dugup coins to the US market:

Those involved in the ancient coin trade know from observing characteristics of the coins and the behavior of the market that the great majority of coins presently being acquired by collectors must have come from past collections, and that the flood of "new to the market" material which began to surface in the 1990s had not actually all been dug up in the last few years [...], but had instead been discovered over a period of many decades by individuals in Communist nations, who did not elect to disclose their discoveries to the authorities and then took advantage of the collapse of Communism to sell their accumulations. That flood is now a thing of the past and the ancient coin market has more or less returned to the state that prevailed prior to 1990. Prices have been rising since 2005 after years of being depressed by oversupply.

What "characteristics of the coins and the behavior of the market" is he talking about? Certainly a huge flood of dugup coins from the Balkans came onto the US and European markets after the fall of Communism in Jugoslavia and the collapse of the Zhivkov regime in Bulgaria, but these were indeed fresh dugups from sites like Archar-Rataria which certainly was being looted after 1989 and not before. So Mr Welsh is suggesting that in fifteen years, the collectors-coin market of the "communist countries" have now been emptied onto the wealthier US and western European markets? Is this not precisely what export licensing is supposed to avoid?

Here's a map of "communism" (red) and the Classical ancient world (Green) the only real overlap between the two (apart from Hungary) is in precisely those areas affected by massive ongoing looting, Bulgaria, Macedonia, the Balkans and Crimea.The features he notes would presumably equally well be explained by these coins coming onto the market due to post-1989 looting following the collapse of strong state control and the rise of criminal gangs. What ("scientific") evidence does Mr Welsh have for promoting his opposing picture? Unless one believes in Coin Fairies and Coin Elves, Occam's razor suggests that in the absence of any verifiable proof that the version Mr Welsh wants us to believe, the known instances of ongoing looting provide a simpler explanation of both the 'flood' of new coins in 1989/90-2005 and its drying up after 2005 (which is about when Bulgarian fakers started turning out their fantasy products to fill the gap in the market caused by the drying up of real dugups as the more accessible sites began to produce fewer and fewer artefacts as they were exhausted).

Now, I think we'd all like Mr Welsh and the ACCG to explain the difference in LEGAL terms between these two categories of ancient dug up coins from ancient sites in a country in eastern Europe:
(a) coins dug up under a Communist regime when the law says that finds belong to the state which are illegally held and not reported and them sold to an ACCG dealer and, 
(b) coins dug up after 1990 and illegally held and not reported and sold to an ACCG dealer like Mr Welsh? 



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COMMENTARY
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As usual, Mr. Barford presents a very misleading picture of that upon which he opines, when he discusses ancient coin collecting and the trade that supplies it. Perhaps that is because his prejudices and ignorance of the subject are misleading him, but it is more likely that he knows full well what the facts are, and is simply posing rhetorical questions for propaganda purposes.

To begin with, metal detector users who licitly practise their avocation in nations that allow the relatively free use of metal detectors -- the UK for example -- certainly are not to blame for the temporary oversupply of large numbers of new to the US market coins between 1995 and 2005. Despite a carefully worded effort to explain in very clear terms why illicit metal detector users in "source states" would find it economically unrewarding to go prospecting for coins as their primary goal, Mr. Barfordblissfully ignores facts and logic and concludes his screed thus:

"Now, I think we'd all like Mr Welsh and the ACCG to explain the difference in LEGAL terms between these two categories of ancient dug up coins from ancient sites in a country in eastern Europe:
(a) coins dug up under a Communist regime when the law says that finds belong to the state which are illegally held and not reported and them sold to an ACCG dealer and, 
(b) coins dug up after 1990 and illegally held and not reported and sold to an ACCG dealer like Mr Welsh?"

The difference in LEGAL terms between these two categories of ancient illicitly excavated coins from sites in some uncertain country, possibly in eastern Europe, will now be explained:
(a) coins found under a Communist regime when the law says that finds belong to the state which are illegally held and not reported and them sold to an ACCG dealer and, 
(b) coins found after 1990 and illegally held and not reported and sold to an ACCG dealer like Mr Welsh?"

To begin with let's examine the unfounded implication unjustly made by Mr. Barford that these illicitly excavated and illicitly exported coin finds were sold to "an ACCG dealer like Mr Welsh." It can be stated without reservation that not one of these finds was sold directly to this observer, or another reputable and law-abiding coin dealer, such as all ACCG coin dealer members are.

These illicit finds were were in nearly every case instead sold to a wholesaler in the nation of discovery, who in turn sold them to a smuggler, who then illicitly exported the coins to a nation in which they could openly be sold -- very likely to Germany or Austria, which both share extensive borders with formerly Communist eastern European nations.

From there the finds were dispersed into the international trade. Some of them came to the USA, and there passed through several hands before an ACCG coin dealer member may have eventually acquired a few selected examples for his stock at a coin show.

It is important to note that after the illicit smuggling of the coin find in question, every subsequent transaction was licit under the laws of the nation in which it occurred.

Thus the answer to Mr. Barford's artfully posed question is:

There is no legal difference insofar as transactions subsequent to the smuggling of the coin find are concerned.

In case a), the finder ran the risk of being prosecuted for illicit possession of unreported ancient artifacts by the former Communist regime.

In case b), the finder ran the risk of illicitly selling the coin find to a wholesaler.

In both cases, the smuggler ran the risk of being caught attempting to illicily cross the border without declaring possession of the coins or obtaining an export permit.

The  risk that smugglers run is increasing, as the border police and Customs officers in nations which control export of antiquities become more efficient and sophisticated in their methods of search and detection, and as bribing one's way past an inspector becomes increasingly difficult and risky. The ACCG has always maintained that the best approach toward controlling illicit export of antiquities is for source states to control their borders, and heartily applauds these advances.


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