Greekcoin Import Restrictions: Or "When Governments Attack".

Legend I can't make out what are you trying to tell about Greece.Can you please explain it better

(I think) it's about coins being classed as "antiquities" to be protected from unlicenced import and export.

Cyprus currently has an agreement with the US which, in 2007, was modified to define ancient coins as one of several classes of "proscribed antiquities" (see the Designated List document, pdf download from State Department website) and therefore illegal to import into the US; old coins which originally came from Cyprus that are detected crossing the border are liable to seizure by US Customs and "repatriated". A similar cultural heritage agreement already exists with Italy, but "coins" aren't on the current Designated List; they are currently lobbying to add coins to their lists of proscribed items, too.

Surprisingly, there is currently no bilateral cultural protection treaty between the US and Greece at all. It wouldn't surprise me if they were lobbying to get one written up, but I hadn't heard of any developments in this area. Greek artefacts are covered only by America's signing of the 1970 UNESCO Convention, which only mentions "coins" briefly and in general terms as a possible category for restrictions.

The restrictions don't cover modern coins (which these governments all hope that foreigners will continue to buy, to help prop up their economies). It's only the older coins these laws target. For Cyprus and Italy, the agreements both stipulate that it only affects ancient coins (4th century AD or earlier). In Greece, anything older than the founding of the Greek State in 1826 is defined as an antiquity and is property of the State.


Too late, it already has. And they didn't take too kindly to Germany's suggestion that they sell off a few of their islands to help pay their debts, either.

In Greece, there are so many excessively duplicated antiquities (including coins) that are slowly crumbling away in underfunded museums that can't afford to take proper care of their collections. If they sold them all off, Greece could probably say goodbye to all their current financial problems. But they won't - cultural protectionism is too deeply ingrained in Greek society. They can be quite militant about it sometimes.

I read the old post about the Hoard of Chalkis.I think owning ancient coins must be not illegal but Laws here in Greece are different.Because of these laws, no honest people collect coins because you can find yourself in jail anytime.So thieves and smugglers dig up everywhere and sell the coins abroad.So Greek collectors collect pennies(lepta and drachma which allowed) and no masterpieces ,Greek ancient coins.
So when I go to a coin show, German English and French collectors know more about my homeland coins than I do.That's embarrassing.

Other cases where they are pushing for making the export of coin illegal for "cultural Heritage" reasons include China (Nothing before 1911), Iraq (at one point it was going to be nothing before 1990 and it was to include coins from other countries found there as well. Iraq used to be an "international" crossroads with coins for all kind of countries found in that country.), Italy has been looking a pushing their cut off into the 19th century, and with Itally you have the problem that Roman coins were used over all of Europe part of Asia and Africa. If you are importing ancient Roman coins how are you going to prove that they DIDN'T come from Italy? I also have to wonder how all these customs agents who are NOT numismatists are going to be able to tell recognize all these different coins and tell which ones are OK an which are not? I'm afraid that eventually they will decide to error on the side of caution and confiscate everything until YOU can prove it is allowed.

A coin embargo... okay there... What about China and their antiquities? Let them keep their heritage, who really cares? You can always go to their museums and country if you want to see them so bad. You can't own everything.