Thursday 15 March 2012

Antiquitist Exceptionalism

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Dealer Dave alarms:
"in reality, it's ancient coins today, early modern coins tomorrow, and all other types of antiquities thereafter".
What? He would mean those like the antiquities that are already on the designated lists appended to MOUs which the ancient dugup coins feature alongside? Talk about navel gazing...

Dealer Dave is for some reason proud that the:
The ACCG's valiant efforts are the only effective resistance from any organization to the onward march of this bureaucratic Goliath.
This 'bureaucratic Goliath' is the US government's Cultural Property Protection Program which basically restricts the import into the US of certain types of unlawfully exported items.

I would say that it is at the least thought provoking that whole sections of the US market in art, ancient art, antiquities, ethnographic material (such as icons) etc manages to comply with US legislation on the import of such items (including MOUs and Designated Lists). There are no groups equivalent to the coineys' ACCG in the rest of the US art market, no protests, no court cases, no fighting talk of torches and pitchforks marches on Capitol Hill. So what is it about US coineys that they see their problems as any different from those of other importers of related items. What is it that convinces them that they are, and should be, an exception? What actually is their problem with getting proper export documentation or declarations for the fresh material they want to bring onto the US market? Why are they fighting shy of doing so? What is it that makes them want to buy material which has no proof of lawful export to sell to their customers, and actually convince those clients to go clamouring to the US government saying they WANT to buy such stuff, that they do not care how it came onto the market?

This should be a puzzle to all normal people, so I wish the coineys would explain it in a way which makes sense.

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