Ancient coins from Italy

[Foro Di Mario]

What is the story about bringing back ancient coins purchased in Italy? I will be traveling to Italy this year and is it possible to bring some back if I were to purchase them locally at shops? Are there any restrictions?

Thanks

[Andrew McCabe]

What is the story about bringing back ancient coins purchased in Italy? I will be traveling to Italy this year and is it possible to bring some back if I were to purchase them locally at shops? Are there any restrictions?

Thanks

It's illegal without an export licence (which can be got but would take more effort than the coins are worth). Most major Italian dealers do now get export licences. You would not be advised to export coins yourself, from Italy or any other source country. If you are minded to do so think "Midnight Express", perhaps. Why not ask a dealer to post them? They could take care of formalities.

[Foro Di Mario]

So if I bring them back in my luggage, what am I facing if I don't declare them? If I mix them in a small bag of Euro's and old Lira's or something. Or do I declare as souvenir's or fakes. What can I do?

[Andrew McCabe]

So if I bring them back in my luggage, what am I facing if I don't declare them? If I mix them in a small bag of Euro's and old Lira's or something. Or do I declare as souvenir's or fakes. What can I do?

Just don't do it unless you are driving and thus not subject to baggage screening. You never know when you might have a random luggage inspection. Bear in mind that all baggage (hold and hand) is screened, and you never know when someone might decide to look at your coins. Customs are actively looking for such items. The consequences of bringing out ancient artifacts is at a minimum confiscation along with an extended interviews by airport authorities (and a missed flight). It might be worse if you bring a large group - prosecution, an involuntary extended stay. Perhaps a few single coins might be mixed with some moderns (don't make it a large group demanding inspection), or in your wallet coin-purse, explainable as tourist copies, but a large group, or anything identifiable as numismatic e.g. in flips, or anything obviously hidden, no way. Crazy to risk it.

There are plenty of reliable Italian and San Marino firms who can properly supply export-controlled coins so there's really no need. The Italians are quite relaxed about what they give export controls to but obviously upset about deliberate bypassing of controls. Your friendly local Forvm or other reliable retail dealer can also supply properly sourced coins.

[rick2]

avoid buying ancient coins in Italy!!

the legislation is very complex and the application varies.

there are cases of people who were raided by the police at 6am and got all their collection seized pending a lenghty judicial process.
there are other cases of people who bought uncleaned coins on ebay and  were accused of handling stolen goods

[Foro Di Mario]

Well, I already bought about 35 denarii online in Italy and had them shipped to my uncles house in Italy. Either way I am stuck with these and need to find a way to get them to the U.S.. Should I have them shipped via mail then?

[benito]

Should have no problem with denarii accompanied by an export permit.
For other types import restrictions exist in the USA .
EDIT.

F. Coins of Italian Types—A type
catalogue of listed currency and coins
can be found in N.K. Rutter et al. (eds.),
Historia Numorum: Italy (London,
2001). Others appear in G.F. Hill Coins
of Ancient Sicily (Westminster, 1903).
1. Lumps of bronze (Aes Rude)—
Irregular lumps of bronze used as an
early medium of exchange in Italy from
the 9th century B.C.
2. Bronze bars (Ramo Secco and Aes
Signatum)—Cast bronze bars (whole or
cut) used as a media of exchange in
central Italy and Etruria from the 5th
century B.C.
3. Cast coins (Aes Grave)—Cast
bronze coins of Rome, Etruscan, and
Italian cities from the 4th century B.C.
4. Struck coins—Struck coins of the
Roman Republic and Etruscan cities
produced in gold, silver, and bronze
from the 3rd century B.C. to c. 211 B.C.,
including the ‘‘Romano-Campanian’’
coinage.
5. Struck colonial coinage—Struck
bronze coins of Roman republican and
early imperial colonies and municipia
in Italy, Sicily, and Sardinia from the
3rd century B.C. to c. A.D. 37.
6. Coins of the Greek cities—Coins of
the Greek cities in the southern Italian
peninsula and in Sicily (Magna
Graecia), cast or struck in gold, silver,
and bronze, from the late 6th century
B.C. to c. 200 B.C.

[Andrew McCabe]

Well, I already bought about 35 denarii online in Italy and had them shipped to my uncles house in Italy. Either way I am stuck with these and need to find a way to get them to the U.S.. Should I have them shipped via mail then?

So, as benito points out, you will need an export permit (there are no import restrictions to the US for denarii, its only export you need to worry about). As it seems to be a lengthy process for professional Italian dealers - I had a coin delayed 2 months while a dealer got a permit, I wouldn't be too optimistic that an American could find his way around to getting an export permit from the relevant ministry.

Needless to say it would have been wiser, when you bought the denarii, to have had the sellers send them direct to you in the USA. Then they'd have had to worry about export, and had you not received them, you could have claimed a refund. Perhaps even wiser to have asked online before buying... I guess you didn't notice the noisy swirl of online discussion on such topics for the last half decade or so. The sellers must have been extremely happy to be able to send the denarii to your uncle as it saved them an immense amount of hassle.

Oh well. I suspect in the end that you won't go to the bother of getting an export permit but will just secrete them in your luggage. And worry quite a bit. You've probably over 90% chance of staying out of prison. well worth it for 35 denarii.

[benito]

Well, I already bought about 35 denarii online in Italy and had them shipped to my uncles house in Italy. Either way I am stuck with these and need to find a way to get them to the U.S.. Should I have them shipped via mail then?

So if I bring them back in my luggage, what am I facing if I don't declare them? If I mix them in a small bag of Euro's and old Lira's or something. Or do I declare as souvenir's or fakes. What can I do?

Not bad the souvenir or fake idea. There are precedents.

Pic I Amenhotep III.
Pic II Amenhotep III after a pre export visit to the beauty parlor.

The perfect solution to your problem.
Buy some potter's clay.
Mix with water and prepare.
Introduce your coins in the clay .
Sculpt.  Pic III. and fire.
On arrival at the first USA airport report to Customs you had bought the statuette for 5000 USD near Pompei. Laughter could be supressed ( not without great effort) but your coins are in.

[Molinari]

I wouldn't leave them in your luggage (by "luggage" I mean checked, not carry-on) regardless of how you mark them- not because of customs but because someone will simply swipe them. 

[Foro Di Mario]

I think I will just send them registered from Italy to the US and not put anything in for declaration. That's what other Italians are saying to do. What do you all think?

[SC]

You send them out of Italy and you are responsible/liable for anything that happens, anything done wrong, etc. 

You get the dealer to send them to your US address and the responsibility and liability fall to them.  They either know what to do in order to do it properly or they take the short cuts and the risk themselves.

Any serious dealer should be willing to do it for you.

Shawn

[bartolus]

And what about ancient coins brought out from UK? Should the buyer have any permission?

[Andrew McCabe]

And what about ancient coins brought out from UK? Should the buyer have any permission?

There's no problem taking ancient coins out of the UK. No permission needed.

All the usual general caveats apply of course. The UK authorities would not care, but if a large consignment of coins of evidently recent Italian origin was found, they might alert the Italians; and the ability to export from the UK has no relation to the ability to import to the US. US MOU restrictions on Greek and certain Italian coins apply regardless of the point of exit from Europe. If you illegally export a large group of coins, from, say, Italy, into the UK, that doesn't render them legal when you try and re-export them from the UK. You can't 'wash' the origin of the coins by transiting them via the UK. Common sense and basic knowledge of regulations goes a long way (export embargoes, unless you have a permit, from Greece, Italy, Turkey, Cyprus, Egypt and others; import embargoes to USA). Proportion also matters. There's a whole lot of difference between a few bronzes in your purse and 500 hoard coins from an evident single source.

In all such discussions I really wonder why the questions ever get asked. Why not buy coins via dealers (including those in source countries) and let them worry about export/import? I don't see any benefit in buying them yourself and exporting yourself. They will probably not be significantly cheaper and you probably will not have much choice of rarities - the thin collector market in the mediterranean source countries means that fabulous rarities are not going to be found in street corner coin selling kiosks.

[David Atherton]

And what about ancient coins brought out from UK? Should the buyer have any permission?

There's no problem taking ancient coins out of the UK. No permission needed.

I thought this was the case as well until I recently purchased a denarius from a reputable UK dealer. I was informed that an export permit had to be obtained in order to ship the coin to me here in the US. I waited a month for the permit and then another week for shipping. To be honest, I was surprised they went to all the trouble because I never had a UK dealer apply for an export permit before.

[Maffeo]

Andrew is very right in theory. In practice, though, how many have had the experience of having, say their coin purse examined by customs while leaving Italy from Fiumicino or Malpensa? Over the last thirty plus years I have done so several times each year, and not once has it happened to me - not that I was carrying any coins of course. I suspect the chance of it actually happening is rather small. I would be interested to hear of anyone to whom it has actually happened.

[SC]

Several years ago I was working in Italy for a few weeks.  While there I was offered (via email) a hoard of 101 early 4th century bronzes from a dealer I know well in another (more northerly) European country.  (I have posted about these coins in an earlier thread on cleaning silvered coins.)  I bought the coins and had them couriered to the hotel I was living in in Italy.  Then, when I left Italy for Canada I took the coins in my carry-on luggage.  (One hundred LRBCs with a bit of padding are about the size of a cigarette pack.)  I had all the paperwork with me to show I had just brought them in to Italy and they were not Italian origin.  I went to the airport 45 minutes earlioer than usual prepared to discuss this all.  They went through the x-ray machine and no one even asked about them.

Shawn