Early Types of Italian Coins Included in US-Italy Cultural Agreement Extension

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Alarmist rumours were being spread by US ancient coin collectors that the Italians were requesting the inclusion of coins of Roman type in this month's US-Italy Cultural Agreement Extension. Nobody knew whether Italy had asked for this or not, the State Department were keeping quiet, but the coineys conducted a lively campaign on the assumption that all Roman coins were included in the Italian party's request. It was pointed out that information was circulating in the in the archaeological community back in September last year that this bipartite agreement was not going to cover such a wide range of material and that Roman Coins were not going to be included.

It turns out on publication today of the dsetails in the Federal Register that although Roman imperial coins were not included, as in the case of China, the MOU will cover the oldest forms of coinage represented in the archaeological material. The text of the Federal Register notes:

This amendment comes in response to a Diplomatic Note from the Government of Italy requesting the Designated List be amended. Coins constitute an inseparable part of the archaeological record of Italy, and, like other archaeological objects, they are vulnerable to pillage and illicit export

Perhaps the ACCG are hoping that this diplomatic note will appear in the Wikileaks cablegate archive?

Now to import certain types of numismatic material into the US legally their legal export from the source country has to be demonstrated. Why is that a problem for the US numismatic trade? I am pretty sure that within a few hours they will inform us of a thousand and one reasons why they simply cannot be transparent about their international transactions like this. Of course the real blow is to Italian suppliers who can no longer stick a coin or two in an envelope and post it to the US as no respectable US dealer will now accept such coins without the proper documentation. As we were told the other day that therefore shuts off about "half" of the world market for such things to unscrupulous sellers and careless exporters.

The coins included are: "Coins of Italian Types"
1. and 2. Lumps and cast bars of bronze (Aes Rude, Ramo Secco and Aes Signatum) primitive money - they say.

3. Cast coins (Aes Grave)-Cast bronze coins of Rome, Etruscan, and Italian cities from the 4th century B.C.

4. Struck coins-Struck coins of the Roman Republic and Etruscan cities produced in gold, silver, and bronze from the 3rd century B.C. to c. 211 B.C., including the ''Romano-Campanian'' coinage.

5. Struck colonial coinage-Struck bronze coins of Roman republican and early imperial colonies and municipia in Italy, Sicily, and Sardinia from the 3rd century B.C. to c. A.D. 37.

6. Coins of the Greek cities-Coins of the Greek cities in the southern Italian peninsula and in Sicily (Magna Graecia), cast or struck in gold, silver, and bronze, from the late 6th century B.C. to c. 200 B.C.

So coins of the Roman Empire (ie what many ancient coin collectors collect) are not affected at all. In fact, if you look at the V-Coins portal today, the number of coins on sale there falling into these groups seems to be about 200-250 coins (in a total of 107,570 Items), so really quite a small and specialist part of the US numismatic market.

This decision now places the coiney naysayers in a difficult position. For several years they have been gearing themselves up to fight the inclusion of coins of Cyprus and China in the bipartite cultural property agreements on the grounds that they form a 'dangerous precedent'. They had been attempting to amass information which would challenge the legality of the procedure by which this was done. The Baltimore illegal coin import stunt was to precipitate this challenge. Now, even if a court does determine there were procedural errors, the value of overturning the Cyprus and China agreements has been substantially reduced by the publication of the Italy one. I cannot believe that the Department of State would have allowed there to be even a smidgin of doubt about the procedure followed in the case of the Italian MOU, I am sure that if another costly FOI procedure was initiated by the PNG, IAPN and ACCG it would find everything this time spick and span. Overturning the Cyprus decision now would serve no prurpose as the Italy one also serves as a precedent. Maybe US dugup antiquity importers should just get used to the idea that their cowboy days are drawing to a close, and their customer today deserves the comfort of knowing not only that the items on sale have been legally obtained and legally exported, but that the dealer is able to document that.

Maybe it is time to salvage the surplus of coins already in the US from being used as tasteful (ahem) wearable jewellery such as this Republican denarius which can be turned back into numismatic collectables?