Totalitarian Tiptoe: Germany and the EU to Pass Draconian Legislation on Collectibles

A friend of mine from the US who also collects coins and antiques sent me this information today, 24 June 2015. In another ridiculous, totalitarian, and unproductive move, the German govermnent is proposing to amend the Law on the Protection of Cultural Heritage in such a way that will greatly limit the legal trade in even common ancient and modern coins as well as things like stamps, books, ceramics, cars, and art.

This amendment will greatly limit the rights of the individual to collect antiques and art valued as low as 100 Euros in some instances, and will retroactively impose due dilligence requirements by requiring individuals to prove the origin of every single piece of the above mentioned items going back at least 20 years.

This is blatantly ridiculous because some collectibles have skyrocketed in value in much less than 20 years. Also the record-keeping requirements are excessively onerous and are impossible to apply to items that were produced in series, but lacking any serial number, such as coins. To comply with this law, all coins over 100 Euros in value would have to be slabbed or sealed in something like a PCGS bubble complete with a God-knows-how-long list of all the people who owned it previously and the prices they paid.

You know what this kind of reminds me of? When the Nazis took over my country, they required my family to prove their Aryan origins going back 3 generations. Ridiculous.

The rationale is allegedly to protect ancient artifacts from being stolen and/or destroyed in places like Iraq. Uhh, excuse me? Did anybody NOT see the videos of ISIS breaking into Iraqi museums and destroying ancient artifacts there? Wouldn’t these ancient artifacts be better off in a place like Germany?

Culture and Media Commissioner Monika Grütters stated “In future anyone wishing to import historical artifacts into Germany will need a valid export permit for every individual item from the country of origin, and this permit will have to be presented. This will also apply to tourists. “Souvenirs” from Egypt or Turkey are often no such thing, but an attempt to illegally export cultural assets protected by law – when the item in question is an original and not a cheap replica. These objects are part of our global cultural heritage that is today threatened by war and crises in many parts of the world.”

Doesn’t this confirm exactly what I’m saying? That these artifacts are threatened by war, and who better to preserve them than someone like a collector who truly values the object in question. And another thing, the border patrol people now have to become experts in antiquities overnight to distinguish fake antique souvenirs from the real thing? Are they gonna have a touchstone and nitric acid on hand to diagnose real Gold from fake? Or a photospectrometer?

Another provision of this law will be to seize and ship back to the country of origin any artifact or collectible that doesn’t comply with this new amendment. So, if a truly valuable statue is found to be from, let’s say Raqqua, Iraq, they’re going to ship it there so ISIS can destroy it for being “pagan?” They serious?

The main problems with this amendment are that (a) it’s retroactive, meaning that if this thing passes in the Bundestag, ALL antiques worth more than 100 Euros become illegal and cannot be sold, which will drive down their values, (b) the burden of proof is on the person possessing it, meaning that I’d have to (somehow) figure out where I’ve bought the THOUSANDS of coins and other antiques I own, and contact all those sellers and ask them to sign an affidavit as to where THEY bought it? And (c) there are intentionally vague and undefined terms in the amendment such as the fact that terms like “items of national and cultural heritage” are not defined.

If this only applied to Germany I wouldn’t be as livid about this, but this amendment is designed to (a) conform in certain aspects to existing EU-wide laws, and (b) to be implemented on an EU-wide basis. If it was just Germany, I’d be like OK, so I no longer can buy or sell on eBay.de so I’ll just use eBay.lu or eBay.at.

If you want to read a brief excerpt on this go here (it’s in English): http://www.bundesregierung.de/Content/EN/Artikel/2014/12_en/2014-12-11-gruetters-raubkunsttagung.html

For this reason, I signed a petition protesting this new amendment to the Law on the Protection of Cultural Heritage at this link (also in English, just scroll down a bit): https://www.openpetition.de/petition/online/fuer-den-erhalt-des-privaten-sammelns

and if you care about this issue I urge you to sign it as well, especially if you live, or have an address in Germany. 120,000 signatures are needed within the next 39 days to get a quorum on this in the Bundestag.

You think we can do this people? You think we can stop the encroachment of the EU’s overarching totalitarian attitude towards real assets? This isn’t an issue pertaining just to rich people, but all people because a lot of people have started to mistrust the banks (after the whole Cyprus and Greece debacle) and have instead put their money into tangible assets which include coins, art, and antiques. Some have inherited them from their relatives.

At the mere stoke of a couple of politicians’ pens, all these assets could become illegal contraband overnight.

Do you have the fortitude to stand up to these people?