A small packet of inexpensive Chinese and Cypriot coins imported from England by the Ancient Coin Collectors Guild (ACCG) have been seized by Customs in Baltimore, Maryland.

The coins were imported to test the legitimacy of State Department (DOS) imposed import restrictions via two Memoranda of Understanding (MOU). ACCG maintains that actions of DOS relating to implementation of the Cultural Property Implementation Act (CPIA) have been secretive, arbitrary and capricious and will contest the seizure in the U.S. Federal District Court in Baltimore.

Information from another Freedom of Information Act lawsuit suggests that the DOS failed to follow the recommendations of its own experts on the Cultural Property Advisory Committee (CPAC) in extending restrictions to Cypriot coins, and then misled Congress about this decision. Other information implicates DOS bureaucrats adding coins to the Chinese MOU even though Chinese officials never asked for their inclusion.

The Obama Administration has promised transparency and accountability in government. ACCG hopes its challenge to the ban on ancient Chinese and Cypriot coins will lead the Court also to address these and other concerns about the process for imposing import restrictions on cultural goods.

During a 2008 International Foundation for Art Research (IFAR) discussion, former CPAC Chairperson Jay Kislak (2003-2008) said, “I am not necessarily against any actions that were taken on any of the MOU’s which were recommended by the Committee and put into action. I am, however, opposed to the way it is done because I think it is absolutely, completely, un-American, and I don’t mind saying that. Not anywhere in our government do we do things this way, except with this group.”

Kislak also addressed government transparency by saying, “In every other branch of government, there is disclosure, and information is made public. We have a democracy, and it is government of the people, for the people, by the people, not by the bureaucrats over them.”
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In a stunning rebuke to the US Mint and the Treasury Department, U.S. District Judge Legrome Davis ruled that the government improperly seized 10 1933 Saint Gaudens Double Eagles (Possibly worth millions d dollars each), and denied the Langbord family due process when Mint officials decided to keep them after they were authenticated without a hearing.

“The government’s ‘good-faith’ belief that the coins were once stolen is not sufficient, under the circumstances, to justify its decision to conduct a warrant less seizure,” Davis wrote.

The case which has been in litigation since, revolves around one of the most fabled coins in all of US Numismatics.

By way of a brief background; The 1933 $20 Double eagle was the last year of production in the popular Saint gaudens series. At the same time the coins were being manufactured, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt made private gold ownership illegal in the US, All the 1933 Double Eagles were supposed to have been destroyed.

Unknown to Mint officials, a limited number found their way out of the mints possession. Historically this is not an unusual occurrence, and dozens of documented cases exist where non regular issue coins have been removed, sold, or otherwise were created for privileged individuals or enterprising collectors with contacts within the Mint itself.

In the 1940s, when the government got wind that coin dealers were selling 1933 Double Eagles, and the Secret Service launched an investigation and eventually seized all the coins it could find. One that evaded the government efforts and was reported as part of the King Faruk collection (Egypt). The 1940s investigators concluded that all of the Double Eagles that got out of the Mint had passed through the hands of a Philadelphia jeweler named Israel Switt. Though the lead Secret Service investigator pressed for charges to be brought against Switt, the Philadelphia U.S. attorney said the statute of limitations had expired. Switt was never prosecuted for the theft of the coins from the Mint. (more…)

By Wayne Sayles – Ancient Coin Collecting

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) argued that truth is a value judgement and questioned the premise that truth is always preferable to (or more valuable than) untruth. He also suggested that we should learn from the ancient Sphinx how to ask questions. Should a question always seek the truth as a response? One would normally think so, but what of the case where an untruth is valued more highly by someone than the truth? Is insinuation of an untruth in the form of a question a reflection of values and therefore acceptable? Nevermind, that’s a rhetorical question that has no truth or untruth in the answer.

In a news article headlined “Why are Ancient Coins From Cyprus Featured in a Suit Against the US Department of State?” archaeologist David Gill asks a misleading question. Of course, they are NOT featured in any such lawsuit (at least not yet). This question was posed by Gill in a press release filed through a commercial news service. It ran, as these releases always do, in scores of media outlets that reach a very wide spectrum of society.

Being a news medium, with certain standards of veracity, the reader might expect to find an answer based on truth. Unless, of course, the question is framed with a Nietzschean mindset. In that case, an untruth may be viewed by the author as a perfectly acceptable answer, irrespective of societal norms. The typical reader of a press release is not going to know much about Nietszche or about ancient coins, maybe not even about Cyprus. They definitely will not know much about the U.S. State Department, which is by design one of the most secretive agencies in the U.S. government.

For Gill’s answer to the headline question, the reader is referred to his most current blog posting. But, as a final teaser at the end of his press release Gill asks one more question: “Are these aggressive legal tactics really for the benefit of collectors, or are there other factors at work?” Once again, the reader expects a question to be followed by a truth. Instead, what they are fed is a potpourri of inaccuracies, untruths and insinuations. What poses as an innocent question is really the sort of catty insinuation that one comes to expect in blogs these days, not in the media.

Let me just outline a few specific inaccuracies in the Gill press release and blog. Speaking about the ACCG/IAPN/PNG Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit, he writes: “The alliance objected to the US Cultural Property Advisory Committee (CPAC) restricting the import of ancient coins minted in Cyprus as part of a wider memorandum of understanding (MOU).” (more…)