Ancient Coin Collecting

How Old Are Ancient Coins?

November 12, 2010

The classification of cultures generally tracks along two interrelated lines: chronological and geographical. Chronologically, the primary divisions of coinage are almost universally accepted as being Ancient, Medieval and Modern. Within the United States, collectors tend to separate U.S. coins from the modern coins of other nations by referring to the latter as “World Coins.” Coins [click to continue…]

Coin collectors restricted by rules

May 13, 2010

They’re worth only about $275, but 23 bronze coins seized by the federal government at Baltimore-Washington International Marshall Airport last year just might be the most important chunk of change for numismatists in years. These well-worn coins, struck more than a thousand years ago in Cyprus and China, are at the center of a dispute [click to continue…]

Ancient Coin Collectors Guild Addresses Antiquities Group

April 27, 2010

The Ancient Coin Collectors Guild has become a driving force in the ongoing effort to protect coin collectors and museums in which coins are stored from being forced to give up these items to foreign governments under the premise the coins are the cultural patrimony of the claimant nation. There are organized archaeological groups that [click to continue…]

ACCG Fax Wizard For Collectors Input on Ancient Coin Imports

April 16, 2010

The U.S. State Department has announced a date of May 6-7 for Cultural Property Advisory Committee hearings on the request for renewal of the Memorandum of Understanding with Italy. In practical terms, the U.S. government is about to decide whether antiquities and other forms of cultural property that Italy claims as its heritage ought to [click to continue…]

Ancients: Famous Romans You Can Collect, Part III

March 23, 2010

David Vagi continues his discussion of some of the most important issuers of Roman coins in the third of a five-part series. 1. Sulla, d. 78 B.C. After having already had an interesting career, Sulla came to prominence while in his 50s, during Italy’s Social War (91-89 B.C.) and the First Mithridatic War (88-84 B.C.). [click to continue…]

Ancient Coin Collectors Guild Seeks Judicial Review of Import Restrictions

February 18, 2010

GAINESVILLE, Mo. — The Ancient Coin Collectors Guild (ACCG), a non-profit advocacy group that supports the free and independent collecting of coins from antiquity, has filed suit in U.S. District Court in Baltimore to expedite its challenge to import restrictions placed on ancient coins struck in Cyprus and China. Back in April 2009, ACCG imported [click to continue…]

Customs Seizes ACCG Coins

October 21, 2009

A small packet of inexpensive Chinese and Cypriot coins imported from England by the Ancient Coin Collectors Guild have been seized by Customs in Baltimore, the ACCG announced Sept. 15. The coins were imported to test the legitimacy of Department of State (DOS) imposed import restrictions via two Memoranda of Understanding (MOU). ACCG maintains that [click to continue…]

The “illicit” antiquities trade

October 20, 2009

For the past five years I have read a nauseating stream of blog posts, news articles, discussion list comments and convention presentation reports that condemn the “illicit” trade in antiquities. The fact that anyone might condemn illicit activity is not in itself nauseating, but the ringing of the same bell 24/7 until the brain fogs [click to continue…]

Drivel over FOIA suit

October 16, 2009

The twitter around the cultural property nationalist blogs at the moment is that a rare tribal octadrachm of the Bisalti has been seized from an auction firm in Switzerland. One of these bloggers even uses the episode to disparage, by linkage and innuendo, the Ancient Coin Collectors Guild (ACCG) and its allies in a Freedom [click to continue…]

7,500 Ancient Coins Seized

August 27, 2009

On August 20, 2009 the Superintendent of Police at Varanisi in India announced to the press that three men were “nabbed” by local authorities for trying to sell over 7,500 “ancient silver coins weighing 68.3 Kg.” During interrogation, the men told police that they had found the coins while digging at their ancestral house in [click to continue…]

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