Fellow Collector:
Please help protect your continued ability to purchase Roman Imperial Coins from abroad. The State Department and US Customs have already drastically limited our ability to bring Greek, Punic, Etruscan and early Republican coins struck in Italy into our country legally. Now, unless collectors engage, there is a real danger the State Department and US Customs will use an upcoming renewal of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Italy to extend current restrictions to Roman Imperial Coins. That would make them quite difficult to import legally as well. Please tell the State Department’s Cultural Property Advisory Committee what you think about the issue. To comment, please go to the Federal eRulemaking Portal (http://www.regulations.gov), enter the Docket No. DOS-2015-0010-0001 (or try this direct link: http://www.regulations.gov/#!documentDetail;D=DOS-2015-0010-0001) and follow the prompts to submit a comment. Please note comments may be posted only UNTIL MARCH 20, 2015 at 11:59 PM.
What should you say? Indicate how restrictions will negatively impact your business and/or the cultural understanding and people to people contacts collecting provides. Add that it’s typically impossible to assume a particular coin (especially Roman ones) was “first discovered within” and “subject to the export control” of Italy. You might also add that Italian historical coins are very common and widely and legally available for sale elsewhere, and point out the absurdity of restricting coins freely available for sale in Italy itself. Your own words are best, but feel free to use the below as a model.
For more, see http://culturalpropertyobserver.blogspot.com/2015/02/enough-already-oppose-yet-another.html
Dear CPAC:
Enough is enough. This MOU should be allowed to lapse. Its negative impacts on collecting and the appreciation of Italian culture and people to people contacts collecting brings now far outweigh any benefits. At a minimum, please free all ancient coins from restriction. Such coins are openly and legally available for sale worldwide, including within Italy itself. It makes absolutely no sense to continue to restrict American access to what Italians themselves have enjoyed since the Renaissance. Finally, please do not recommend new restrictions on Roman Imperial Coins. As the products of a great empire, these coins circulated throughout Europe, the Middle East and beyond. They “belong” not to Italy, but to us all.
Sincerely,
xxx
This is only to restrict history, which is usually engaged with small items like coins. The entire concept is to distance people from history to get rid of dangerous concepts like liberty, freedom, individual responsibility, deciding on how to rule ourselves without an elite. This is a fight for the soul of humanity.