Coin Collectors to Challenge State Department on Import Restrictions

GAINESVILLE, Mo., May 13 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- As a British Airways jetliner touched down in Baltimore on April 15th, U.S. citizens busily writing last minute checks to the IRS could hardly have anticipated that their tax dollars would be used by the U.S. State Department to wage an ideological war against coin collectors. Part of the cargo of BA flight 229/16 that day was a small packet of very common, inexpensive, Cypriot and Chinese coins being imported by the Ancient Coin Collectors Guild (ACCG). The entry of these coins, forbidden under bilateral agreements with Cyprus and China, marked the launch of a test case to determine whether the State Department has banned their importation properly under a 1983 law dealing with cultural property protection.

As mandated, U.S. Customs detained the coins upon arrival. The ACCG now plans to use this detention as a vehicle to strike down the unprecedented regulations banning importation of whole classes of ancient coins. The collectors' advocacy group claims that . . .

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