jlueke Posted January 31, 2009 Report Share Posted January 31, 2009 Coin Collections Seized The gist of the article is that according to a new German law any coin or stamp of 100 years old is supposed to have provenance going back to when it was acquired. If not police can search the home and confiscate complete collections. This is exactly what some people want to see in the US and the world over. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johnny 1989 Posted January 31, 2009 Report Share Posted January 31, 2009 Coin Collections Seized The gist of the article is that according to a new German law any coin or stamp of 100 years old is supposed to have provenance going back to when it was acquired. If not police can search the home and confiscate complete collections. This is exactly what some people want to see in the US and the world over. I'm sure (although feel free to correct me if I'm wrong) they don't have this sort of issue over here, in fact I think the UK is quite lenient on things like that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Art Posted January 31, 2009 Report Share Posted January 31, 2009 Makes no sense at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jlueke Posted January 31, 2009 Author Report Share Posted January 31, 2009 I'm sure (although feel free to correct me if I'm wrong) they don't have this sort of issue over here, in fact I think the UK is quite lenient on things like that. The UK is probably in the best position via the PAS for protecting collectors, find information, letting museums get rare pieces and so on. We are more likely to have this trouble in the US before it goes to the UK. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scottishmoney Posted January 31, 2009 Report Share Posted January 31, 2009 I have a very rare Scottish Ryal that I have a provenance going back to 1903 on, but aside from that provenances in much of my collection only go back a generation or so. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TreasureGirl Posted February 1, 2009 Report Share Posted February 1, 2009 I'm not sure I understand... provenance? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thedeadpoint Posted February 1, 2009 Report Share Posted February 1, 2009 That's a scary thought. Why would Germany (or any country) do that?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark Stilson Posted February 1, 2009 Report Share Posted February 1, 2009 I like the babelfish translation of it. Does it have to do with WW II stolen coins and such. Or is it something similar to England's laws on finding coins. I notice the metal detector part of it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kristofer Posted February 1, 2009 Report Share Posted February 1, 2009 Here is a rough translation, I used Google to do this. There are some definite flaws but it lets you get the gist. It looks like this mainly applies to super old coins which greatly affects this community. Shovel, spade, sledgehammer - with these tools may Helmut Schubert, President of the German Numismatic Society, little start. He is a coin collectors and scholars from passion, not a pirate graves, with a metal detector on the nights lonely fields and through dark forests stapft. Ancient History, he studied his thesis on ancient coins, and since the late 70s at the Frankfurt University researched and taught. But it is not the big Cash to it goes - on the contrary. "Our society, the Association of Münzsammlervereine in Germany, wants to fulfill an educational mission and the serious collector to collect inspire. They are the coins as cultural objects, and also with state political, genealogical, and artistic issues," says the 65-year-old, the half a year ago in the retired. ADVERTISEMENT The fact that in recent years, the cases are piling in which all the old collections of coins seized by the judicial police are preparing Schubert big concern. "Right now our membership remains relatively constant, in Frankfurt, 75 collectors in our organized, in Germany around 3000," he says. "We fear, however, that there are fewer and fewer people ever dare to collect, if the police do not maintain proportionality of means." The accused will Münzfans the illegal removal of archaeological sites all over the world, and receiving a reduced criminal consciousness. With a suspicion they often need in the shortest possible time of origin evidence, which generally do not exist. "If the origin of three or four coins is questionable, and a suspicion that is equal to the entire collection be forfeited. And it's happened before, that the suspicion is proved to be unfounded, the collector of the coins, however, has not returned. " Bargains on the Internet On the other hand, want to Schubert and his colleagues now to defend themselves - especially as the collector is often the stumbling block ignorant, but at a bargain price, the Internet auction has. "This is nothing other than if someone else a mixer auction, with whom he makes mashed potato", illustrates his position Schubert. With other representatives of collective passion, the actual crime or had contact with the relevant people have wanted to be at the German Society Numismatic nothing to do. "A collector may prey graves also not encouraging," says Schubert. "But that does not honorable man who is with us organized." In the summer of Schubert now planning a major event in Frankfurt. Then representatives of the preservationists, as well as meet the collector and the problem of robbery digs discuss. A field of orchids "Helmut Schubert called the coin collecting - and that he wants to preserve. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jlueke Posted February 2, 2009 Author Report Share Posted February 2, 2009 I'm not sure I understand... provenance? Provenence means tracking where a coin came from back to it's source and keeping track of the initial finds and owners in between. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tabbs Posted February 5, 2009 Report Share Posted February 5, 2009 It looks like this mainly applies to super old coins which greatly affects this community. Not exactly "super", unless you consider everything that is more than 100 years old to be super old . Then again, nothing in the article linked to in the first post says anything about a "new law" regarding such issues. Why? Surprise - there is no such law here. However, there are legitimate reasons to be concerned about how some collectors are apparently criminalized by some police officers. I sent Jorg some more material about the background which will hopefully clarify the matter. Also see this topic http://www.coinpeople.com/index.php?showtopic=22689 in the "Links" (?) forum. In one case last year (June 2008) which was fairly widely publicized here in Germany, a collector had bought some coins via eBay which the police suspected to be from a theft in the Czech Republic. Four ancient pieces, nothing spectacular, but he did not have a provenance certificate ... and actually most collectors do not have such documents as they are not required. Anyway, the poor guy's entire collection was seized. And it's not just "private" collectors who are affected, even public museums ... Christian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hiho Posted February 7, 2009 Report Share Posted February 7, 2009 Next the government will be seizing the land that your house sits on and returning it to it's rightful owners... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jtryka Posted February 7, 2009 Report Share Posted February 7, 2009 I don't think this will be an issue in the US for 2 reasons, first, there is the due process/search and seizure protections in the Constitution, so unless someone shows that a coin you own was stolen property, then there is no need to prove your innocence in an assumption of guilt. Second, and more importantly, we have the precedent of FDR's executive order, so all they would need to do is proclaim all gold and silver illegal to own and then it's confiscated, no added complications of provenance etc. I doubt they would try that again unless things got "Gideon Gono" bad here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan769 Posted February 7, 2009 Report Share Posted February 7, 2009 Pretty much one of the silliest things I have ever heard. I'm with Art, makes no sense whatso ever. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tabbs Posted February 7, 2009 Report Share Posted February 7, 2009 unless someone shows that a coin you own was stolen property, then there is no need to prove your innocence in an assumption of guilt Don't know about the laws in your country, but yes, that is how things work here. See the other topic http://www.coinpeople.com/index.php?s=&...st&p=417894 about exactly the same issue ... Christian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bill Posted February 8, 2009 Report Share Posted February 8, 2009 As more becomes known about the event cited, it has been learned that the coins were seized under laws covering the receipt of stolen goods. The police are apparently tracking the movement of stolen and illegally acquired antiquities. It seems the real lesson here is one should know and trust their dealer. I buy many tokens, medals, and books on Ebay. I don't buy ancient coins on Ebay. I buy from dealers I can trust and I keep my sales receipts so I can point the coin back to where I acquired it (I do this for Ebay as well, keeping at least the auction item number and seller). If you buy stolen property at a flea market and the police track you down, it will be siezed in the US as well along with anything else related to the investigation. There is almost always more to a story than what you hear if it seems strange. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tabbs Posted February 8, 2009 Report Share Posted February 8, 2009 Yes, quite a few collectors of precious older coins have some kind of documentation (certificate, proof of purchase, etc.) which helps if, for example, coins are stolen or lost. However, this is not required per se by German law. Now why certain police officers claim the contrary, I don't know ... As mentioned before, in the past couple of months there have been many articles about this issue in German coin magazines such as MünzenRevue or Münzen & Sammeln. Now that numismatic societies and even museums protest against the way collectors and dealers are criminalized (again, by some in the German, particularly Hessian police), there have also been a few articles in newspapers about this issue. Again, in German of course - I don't really know much about coverage in languages of countries that are not affected. But in another forum where I read and post (http://www.worldofcoins.eu/) somebody recently posted this link http://paul-barford.blogspot.com/2008/11/r...e-reaction.html Might be interesting to read. And as I wrote, Ursula Kampmann's article about this in the WMF catalog is in English as well as in German. Christian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atlantida Posted August 6, 2009 Report Share Posted August 6, 2009 Next the government will be seizing the land that your house sits on and returning it to it's rightful owners... And in the U.S. they will begin seizing private land and returning it to the American Indians... Regarding coin collections, does the polizei have a right to check everyone's house even if unsure whether they've got collections of over 99 years old at home? Or do they check homes only of those who have been reported and suspected to own stolen collectibles? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tabbs Posted August 6, 2009 Report Share Posted August 6, 2009 does the polizei have a right to check everyone's house even if unsure whether they've got collections of over 99 years old at home? Over here we have a legal principle which is called presumption of innocence, y'know ... Christian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scottishmoney Posted August 6, 2009 Report Share Posted August 6, 2009 Over here we have a legal principle which is called presumption of innocence, y'know ... Christian We had that one time in the USA, the concept of being innocent until proven guilty. That exists still in principle, but now the media convicts people before the courts have a chance too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tabbs Posted August 7, 2009 Report Share Posted August 7, 2009 We had that one time in the USA, the concept of being innocent until proven guilty. That exists still in principle, but now the media convicts people before the courts have a chance too. Not all that different here. Besides, you sure get into a lot of trouble if the police search your house and seize your collection, or parts of it. That would of course not be some random search but needs to be based on a search warrant "issued" by a DA. Such a warrant is supposed to be a means of finding evidence - and if the issue is being a fence, then the questionable objects, be it 20 possibly stolen TV sets or a couple of possibly illegally acquired coins, can be seized. The problem here is that some DAs and police officers insist on seeing a pedigree or proof of purchase - a document which is not legally required for coins. It is a difficult issue indeed; usually you won't have such a pedigree if you buy an old coin at, say, a flea market. But of course, if you buy a coin that was stolen, looted, smuggled, etc. before, you profit from a violation of the law, or even violate it yourself. Now the theory of some DAs is that, by buying old coins without pedigree, you approvingly accept that. To avoid a possibly long and costly lawsuit, some collectors simply agree on giving their "suspicious" coins up. As long as that happens, a police officer and hobby archeologist such as Eckhard Laufer, and some DAs, are encouraged to proceed. Then again, two weeks ago a court in Bavaria decided that a collector who had purchased a few ancient coins did not do anything illegal (see http://www.focus.de/digital/internet/ebay/...aid_419426.html , in German). He bought some - apparently common and inexpensive - pieces on eBay, and the "full program" was launched: investigation, search, and the offer to suspend the proceedings if the man agreed to the confiscation of the coins. Interestingly, this collector was a policeman, in fact a leading CID officer, and a note about the suspension would have been listed in his job file. So he did not agree, was then supposed to pay a €1,200 fine, and fought that. The case went to court, and the judge decided that the man is not guilty. While this was just one decision of one local court, it will influence the way such cases are dealt with in the future. Even the DA had ultimately pleeded not guilty ... But as far as I can tell, it will not really influence the debate in the US. Seems that some archeologists, and organizations such as the ACCG on the other hand, exploit the debate to pursue their own agenda, including some interesting political views. ("Nor am I shocked that it is happening in Germany because they have flirted with fascism and gone back and forth with mild forms of socialism over the years." - quoted from http://coinarchaeology.blogspot.com/2009/0...ntenced-in.html , in English) At least we now know that the ACCG campaign is not actually about what's going on in Germany. Christian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scottishmoney Posted August 7, 2009 Report Share Posted August 7, 2009 But as far as I can tell, it will not really influence the debate in the US. Seems that some archeologists, and organizations such as the ACCG on the other hand, exploit the debate to pursue their own agenda, including some interesting political views. ("Nor am I shocked that it is happening in Germany because they have flirted with fascism and gone back and forth with mild forms of socialism over the years." - quoted from http://coinarchaeology.blogspot.com/2009/0...ntenced-in.html , in English) At least we now know that the ACCG campaign is not actually about what's going on in Germany. Christian I hate to suggest to the ACCG blogger, but at times the USA has flirted with fascism and mild forms of socialism too. It is what happens in a free society, at times the political spectrum gets a bit right or left of centre and things go a muck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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