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 Replies: 13 / Views: 3,920 |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
3843 Posts |
ebay to Stop Selling Confederate Flag Products http://abcnews.go.com/Business/ebay...?id=31971048I hope that this ban doesn't include historical currency, that would cause significant damage to the collecting community. ebay has a long history of overdoing these bans, including banning pre-Castro Cuban coinage that is perfectly legal to own and sell. Your thoughts? Quote:" ebay is a global marketplace and community and we continually monitor the approximately 800 million items on our site, and evaluate our policies to ensure they are consistent with our core purpose," company spokeswoman Johnna Hoff said in a statement. "We have decided to prohibit Confederate flags, and many items containing this image, because we believe it has become a contemporary symbol of divisiveness and racism. This decision is consistent with our long-standing policy that prohibits items that promote or glorify hatred, violence and racial intolerance."
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1080 Posts |
I can't find their original statement, so I don't know if this is likely to impact Gettysburg halves, for example.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2589 Posts |
While I certainly bear no love for the Confederacy (one of my ancestors died fighting for the Union at the Battle of Fort Wagner), I do think these outright bans by retailers of everything related to the confederate flag will be far to over-broad for their intended purpose. I imagine all kinds of innocent activities such as civil war reenacting, relic collecting, and vexillology (flag collecting) will be adversely affected by these new policies. Perhaps even a history book that depicts a flag or the state flag of Mississippi could be conceivably banned from sale on these sites.
I also find it a bit hypocritical, given that the perpetrator of the heinous crime in South Carolina that spurred these bans actually appears to have identified more with the white supremacist Rhodesian government that ruled what is now Zimbabwe in the 60's and 70's. Yet I have yet to hear of these same companies banning Rhodesian flag related items. Banning Confederate items gets them news attention, while banning the flag of a country most people have never heard of gets them nothing.
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Moderator
 United States
23522 Posts |
I have to strongly urge you guys to work hard at keeping this related to numismatics. The moment we saw the topic, we knew it'd be dangerous territory to keep numismatic. Otherwise we have to disappear it to General Discussion.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2589 Posts |
Well then, perhaps to move the discussion into a direction more numismatically related. What numismatic related items could theoretically be banned under this policy? I imagine there are several issues of confederate currency that have the confederate flag on it that would potentially be affected.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2850 Posts |
I hope it doesn't include these -- Purely history related and that's it. Banning such a thing would be a complete shame.  |
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Moderator
Australia
16826 Posts |
It says (assuming the ABC news site is quoting an actual ebay employee) that only "many items containing this image" will be banned, not "all items". Presumably, genuine civil-war-era relics would still be OK. In Germany, selling genuine WWII-era Nazi coins is perfectly OK, it's only the selling of modern Neo-Nazi stuff that's illegal. I would assume the same principle would apply here. Don't say "infinitely" when you mean "very"; otherwise, you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite. - C. S. Lewis
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Bedrock of the Community
United Kingdom
17928 Posts |
Will they ban the Dukes of Hazzard?
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
10982 Posts |
This should not affect coins and paper currency.
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Bedrock of the Community
 United States
12819 Posts |
Quote:
This should not affect coins and paper currency. I concur. WWI-era German coins bearing swastikas are available on ebay. The regime they represent was deplorable but banning sale of those artifacts doesn't mean the evil never happened, and we should not ignore history, but learn from it. Confederate coins/currency should not be treated any differently. IMO it's a knee-jerk reaction by r/etailers trying to not get pummeled by the court of public opinion that is Twitter, Facebook, etc. and lose money. Now for the most part, this kind of reaction is probably geared at retail crap (and I use even that term loosely); and I support that reaction. Probably not geared at coins, currency, artifacts, and memorabilia. Pretty much what Sap said. To not get this conversation sent to GD, I'm going to go bid on a couple of "taboo" coins/currency right now.  |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
7840 Posts |
Coins such as the Texas Commemorative (there are six flag poles) and Stone Mountain (mentioning the Southern Soldier), are they in danger as well?
Edited by oih82w8
06/26/2015 12:31 am
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Pillar of the Community
United States
5850 Posts |
I was actually wondering about the Stone Mountain Commemorative myself, but was afraid to mention it lest it cause any controversy. But, since you brought it up...
The reasoning behind the current backlash against the Confederate Flag (or "Battle Flag") seems to be the general perception that it glorifies and supports those who were fighting to keep slavery in the South. Supporters of the flag, of course, claim that it's really honoring the bravery of those who fought for the South, but the fact remains that those who fought for the South were doing so to protect an institution that is almost universally reviled today (I say "almost" because apparently there are still some people who think that owning people was a pretty great idea). To many folks, it's like saying that the Nazi Swastika flag isn't about hatred of the Jews but is "really" just meant to honor the brave soldiers that fought on the German side (who were attempting to exterminate the Jewish people off the face of the earth).
Regardless of which side of the debate you come down on, I really can see the exact same arguments being made against the Stone Mountain Commemorative. Sure, it was created specifically to honor the bravery of the men of the South, but once again there's no getting around the fact of what the brave men of the South were actually fighting for.
On the other hand, of course, I'm not aware of anybody actually using the Stone Mountain Commemorative coin as a symbol of hatred. You don't see white supremacy groups handing them out a party favors, turning them into belt buckles, embedding them on their rifle stocks, etc. At least, I don't think you do... Although it's not a coin I personally want to own in my collection, I personally don't think that it is, in fact, a symbol of hatred or that people who do own one are closet (or overt) racists who think that we should have kept slavery.
So, yeah, ban the flag but keep the coin!
Edited by barryg
06/26/2015 4:53 pm
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Valued Member
United States
212 Posts |
I think any post civil war things should be banned. Likely any coin/currency related things shouldn't be taken off, or that just destroys confederate currency on ebay. Key word: Many items, not all items Edited by NickelCollector
06/26/2015 10:28 pm
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
3843 Posts |
Interesting New York Times article on ebay's 2001 ban of Nazi items (excluding coins and stamps). Ban on Nazi Items Upsets Collectors http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/10/t...lectors.htmlThese bans seem to be a bit more nuanced than I first thought and some historical items are spared. Another article on a 1941 Mercedes Benz 540K Cabriolet B once used by Hermann Goering which was prohibited from sale on ebay. Historic or Offensive: ebay bans Nazi-Goering Mercedes http://www.ecommercebytes.com/C/abb...6/1404079102Nazi items permitted to be listed (from the above article) Quote:
- Stamps, letters, and envelopes displaying Nazi postmarks
- Currency issued by the Nazi German government, including military scripts
- Items that have a swastika that are not related to Nazi Germany (such as good luck charms, Native American blankets, Buddhist sculptures)
- Replica or novelty stamps or currency of Nazi Germany (must comply with the currency and stamp policies) even if they contain images of swastikas or German leaders
Edited by Joe2007
06/26/2015 10:31 pm
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Replies: 13 / Views: 3,920 |
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Posted 06/23/2015 11:32 pm
