Yes, it's a war

In the latest issue of The American Numismatic Society Magazine (Spring 2007), although unnamed, I was personally chastised by the Editor and ANS Executive Director as being "bellicose". I suppose I should be flattered. In response to the U.S. State Department's furtive manipulation of the CPAC hearing on renewal of an agreement with Cyprus, I had made the statement publicly that their action might be considered "the Pearl Harbor of the Cultural Property War". That was apparently offensive to some. Today, the State Department not only affirmed my conclusion, they launched a major offensive against coin collectors. This is not "Pearl Harbor", this is "D-Day" for Cultural Property Nationalists. If that sounds bellicose, it ought to. The Federal Register for today (Vol. 72, No. 134) includes notice of the continuation of the "Emergency" restrictions imposed five years ago on "cultural objects" from Cyprus. It also announces the specific addition of coins to the list of restricted items. Coins had been exempt in the original agreement.

Why does this announcement constitute an attack on the American people? Because it codifies the general principle that any country in the world can claim perpetual ownership of objects, including coins, made in that country. It does not matter that those objects may have left the country of origin 2,000 years ago and crossed a multitude of international boundaries in the intervening years. It does not matter that they may even have been produced expressly for an export market. It does not matter that the objects may be as common as dirt and of less monetary value than a phone call to the country in question. It does not matter that the objects may have been legally acquired by a collector in a third country, where draconian import restrictions do not exist. These designated objects may not be imported into America once the U.S. State Department so dictates. It is more than a sad commentary that in the "Land of the Free" we are not free to purchase an object that can be purchased legally by millions, indeed billions, of people in other lands. 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. Is there no hope at all that the governing of America will rest in the hands of people with common sense?

Maybe they just don't understand the issue? Make no mistake, the U.S. State Department understands the issue. The universal nature of coins as patrimony of the world, not of an individual state, has been brought repeatedly to their attention by the Ancient Coin Collectors Guild, the International Association of Professional Numismatists and the Professional Numismatists Guild. When the hearing on this Cyprus request was held, well more than a thousand individual collectors of ancient coins faxed letters of concern and protest to the State Department. This obviously did not convince State Department decision makers that the desires and interests of American citizens were paramount to those of a foreign state. In the arcane world of international diplomacy, a coin collector in Keokuk, Iowa does not carry a big stick.

So, is this really worth calling a "war"? The late Steven Vincent thought so, when he wrote a feature story for Art and Auction in 2002 titled "The Secret War of Maria Kouroupas". Ms. Kouroupas is the full time bureaucrat behind a committee of appointed volunteers who advise the president on cultural property issues. Vincent called Ms. Kouroupas "Washington's smart weapon in its shadowy war on collecting antiquities." Vincent quoted a former aide to senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan who characterized the Cultural Property Advisory Committee harshly. "Under Maria, it has become dominated by archaeologists who hate the trade and have no tolerance for other points of view." That view echoed the thoughts of Nina Teicholz, who wrote about CPAC and the "battle" between collectors and archaeologists in the Washington Post two years earlier "...longtime staff director, Maria Kouroupas, is a fierce advocate of the prevailing archaeologist position that any private market for antiquities is unconscionable." Although strong minority opinions have been recorded, CPAC has endorsed every request for import restrictions that has ever been brought before it.

In a political world, it is inescapable that government decisions will be influenced by the interests of the party in power. It is a constant source of frustration to many conservatives that the Republican administration has failed to protect the conservative point of view in an area where a simple word would have been sufficient. Namely, that personal property rights are a mainstay of the American experience; that the government of the United States exists to serve the people of this nation before those of others; and that no other nation shall infringe upon the rights of the American people.