Import restrictions on coins.

In the past, CPAC has recommended against import restrictions on coins.  Initially those recommendations were followed, but beginning with the renewal of Cypriot import restrictions in 2007, this has changed. Now, there are restrictions on coins made in Cyprus, China, Italy, Greece, Bulgaria, Syria and Egypt. [...] Restrictions have drastically limited Americans’ abilities to purchase historical coins from abroad and have negatively impacted the cultural understanding and people to people contacts collecting fosters.

US Organizations with Middle East Ties are Promoting the Libyan Request

Peter Tompa warns

This request appears timed to coincide with a raft of recent presentations about the trade in looted Middle Eastern art by the Antiquities Coalition and its various partners – much of it based on discredited data. The presentations have focused on the evils of the international trade in looted art from these regions, and by wholly unsubstantiated statements that looted artifacts from the crisis areas in the Middle East have entered the US market or are being sold here. In these presentations, the value of the legal market in provenanced antiquities, especially the auction market, are used to justify claims about a supposed illicit market. In the view of the Antiquities Coalition, agreements under the CPIA with authoritarian Middle Eastern governments are seen as positive because they will end the art trade.

Libyan MOU a Done Deal

As Peter Tompa observes:

all the evidence points to the matter being already decided—no matter what the CPIA says, what the facts really are, and what American citizens or others interested in collecting Libyan artifacts may think.  Still, to remain silent is to give cultural bureaucrats and archaeologists with an ax to grind against collectors exactly what they want-- the claim that any MOU is not controversial. 

Macquisten on the Global Challenges for an Unprepared Market

An article by Ivan Macquisten, A Triple Whammy, which appears in the July-August 2017 RICS Property Journal, is an excellent two-page summary of where the ancient art trade is today and why. The exploitation of war in the Middle East by anti-art trade campaigners, the prevalence of fake news, and the crucial steps that must be taken by the trade – establishing and disseminating the true facts and building public trust in the art market – are laid out clearly and succinctly. This is an article to circulate and to share.

 CCP "Macquisten on the Global Challenges for an Unprepared Market" June 27, 2017.

The Field Museum educates about forgeries

The Field Museum educates about forgeries

Fellow collctors beware!

The Beauty of the Corinthian Helmet

Unquestionably, one of the most beautiful components of the ancient Greek hoplite's panoply, the celebrated Corinthian helmet (Kallos Gallery).