By Richard Giedroyc, World Coin News February 12, 2010

If you emigrated from another country to the United States to live, bringing some of your family’s prized antiques with you, do you have the right to keep the antiques or can the country of your origin demand these antiques back because they are part of the cultural patrimony of that nation?

This debate is at the heart of the clash between those of the nationalist view versus those with the view that the individual has the right to his heritage. The 1970 UNESCO agreement to which the United States is not yet a signatory enforces the nationalist view as law, a view which if the US were to sign it would impact coin collectors directly.

Wayne Sayles is a spokesman for the Ancient Coin Collectors Guild, an organization that is actively apposing having the United States sign the UNESCO agreement. In the December 2009 issue of The Celator magazine Sayles explains in his column “Through the Looking Glass” part of the impact the agreement would have on coin collectors should the United States become a signatory to the agreement.

According to Sayles, “…UNESCO deals with all other cultural property within a rigidly nationalist framework. The 1970 resolution that we have often discussed here defines cultural property as that “…specifically designated by each state as being [of] importance for archaeology, prehistory, history, literature, art, or science…” In other words, state heritage, not world heritage.”

Later in his column Sayles continues, “In the nationalist view adopted above, there can be little room for the conflicting opinion that individuals have rights to their heritage, whether ethnic, geopolitical, or simply acquired through acculturation or other affinity. The accumulation, preservation, and private ownership of those things that a collector would perceive as part of their own personal heritage are anathema to the nationalist ideology supported in UNESCO 1970.”

Sayles summarizes the ACCG view (also likely the view of coin collectors universally), saying: “Collecting tactile objects relating to that heritage, be they coins or other cultural property, is a harmless, educational, and productive exercise that we can all enjoy.”

Don’t get your hopes up that all this will go away and collecting will go on as always. In the January 2010 issue of The Celator the magazine’s editor, Kerry Wetterstrom, advises his readers, “I came away from this [Cultural Property Advisory Committee, Nov. 13, 2009] hearing with the strong belief the odds are against the ancient coin collecting community in receiving a fair shake from the U.S. Department of State, specifically its Cultural Heritage Center office, at these CPAC hearings.”

Perhaps all this political posturing appears to be remote and doesn’t concern you, the collector. All coin collections could be impacted should the UNESCO agreement be signed by the United States.

The bottom line for world coin collectors is that even such commonplace coins as Chinese cash coins issued prior to 1911 may be able to be legally seized and returned to the country in which they originated or were initially discovered if the UNESCO agreement becomes effective in the United States. If you don’t want to see that happen perhaps you should support ACCG and others trying to avoid the ratification of the agreement.



ACCG can be contacted at www.accg.us.



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