This is directed at
Curtis JJ and anyone else interested in the discussions of
provenance that I have been enjoying. I present here a specific case. I don't have a lot of coins with
provenance, but I do have a few. Mostly mine are ex-specific
collection type of stuff, most of which
collections I know very little or nothing about. I plan on digging deeper into some of these. But, for now I present one coin specifically that I find interesting and it is a coin I also love, partly because of the provanance:
See it at my
gallery at
https://www.forumancientcoins.com/gallery/displayimage.php?pid=177029This is a coin of the Hindu Shahis of Kabul and Gandhara, circa 750-850 AD. It was owned by William
Spengler (Bill) who was a diplomat in Afghanistan in the 1960s and perhaps as late as the fall of the monarchy there in 1972 or thereabouts. My coin photo includes
his collector tag. He
had an extensive
collection, some of which was donated to institutions. I like that coin, but I love
his collector tag.
Note that I have a grad degree in anthropology. I say this because in the US, getting a grad degree in anthropology (at least back when I got mine, not sure how it is now), we
had to prove we were proficient in the four fields of anthropology, which are Archaeology, Linguistics, Physical Anthropology and Cultural Anthropology. My degree was in cultural, but I do understand archaeology is my only point here. In Europe, the fields are separated.
One thing I will say is that, back then, most American archaeologists I knew hated the US Repatriation
Act (The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation
Act of 1990). It is like a lot of the laws of countries like
Turkey and
Greece in regard to anything ancient. It means that many artifacts may not be studied and must be returned to tribes, many of which have zero relation to the artifacts or bones, etc. It also makes collecting illegal. I know many archaeologists who hate collectors. I never really have, while I also am opposed to a lot of the illegal
antiquities trade, I never
had an issue with collectors of projectile points and coins. Indeed, I collect both. LOL. I am old enough to have also
had ivory objects. These laws make finders into criminals in many cases. I spent over a year in
Turkey and never bought a single coin or
antiquity. I
had seen the movie Midnight Express. My friend did buy a
Byzantine gold coin from a "farmer," but I am willing to bet it was a
fake. It was a beautiful coin, but I knew nothing back then and the
price was high for the late 70s for me. I passed. Who knows.
So, I did a
search on Bill
Spengler. First entry I clicked on was a 2010 blog from an archaeologist who hated/still hates collectors and referenced a meeting in which
Wayne Sayles was involved. A quote:
Wayne Sayles has made three public submissions to the CPAC deliberations of the Greek request to impose import controls on illegally-exported items of cultural property from Greece. In one of them he presents a totally unrelated anecdote about the activities of dealers in Afghanistan which however raises a question of direct relevance to the issue being discussed:
The late William F. Spengler was, during his career with the U.S. State Department, the highest ranking U.S. diplomat in Afghanistan. During his tenure in Kabul, Mr. Spengler became aware of a section in the local bazaar where scrap metals were traded. Among the various shops were some that accumulated coins that were then melted and sold as bullion. A few were sold as curios in local shops. Being a collector, interested in coins and their history, Mr. Spengler regularly visited the bazaar and selected individual pieces of interest that he typically purchased at the prevailing scrap or precious metal rate. Although countless thousands of specimens have been lost forever, some of these coins and their historical messages were literally saved from oblivion because of the interest of this collector. Due to the benevolence of Mr. Spengler, many of these coins are preserved today in institutions here and abroad. In fact, the sole Athenian decadrachm in the U.S. National Coin Collection at the Smithsonian was acquired in this way and donated by Mr. Spengler. [...] This anecdote is remarkable mainly because it happens all too frequently and historical coins are being lost every day due to repressive laws that make them valueless to the finder in any way other than to destroy them for their intrinsic metal value.
Well, of course Greece (the subject of the CPAC's upcoming discussion) has no such laws, as I have pointed out earlier these coin collectors are consistently ignoring the fact that current Greek legislation means that finders of items like this receive a reward.
Complete blog entry available here:
http://paul-barford.blogspot.com/2010/09/spengler-collection-at-cpac.htmlThe blog entry goes on to claim that collectors use this "BS" argument of metal scrap yard melting to justify collecting.
Anyway, I thought this was an interesting aspect of the
provenance discussions and might be interesting.
Virgil
Edit: I
corrected my spelling of Sayles. I hate spellcheck.
