Travels with the Naxos Masterpiece - Episode 5: Crime

Episode 5: Crime delves into the darker side of numismatics, examining the crimes that have been committed in association with ancient antiquities, with a particular focus on the Naxos Tetradrachm.

This concluding episode explores the legal concept of “cultural property,” which is protected by national legislation and international agreements. It tackles a complex and often controversial landscape, addressing issues such as forgery, looting, trafficking, laundering, misrepresentation, and restitution—factors that, while uncommon, play a significant role in the history and journey of the Naxos coin.

Enjoyed this episode? Subscribe to our YouTube channel @ancient_coin_collection and follow us on Instagram @ancientcoincollectionpodcast for more from the Ancient Coin Collection.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

So thank you very much for joining us on the fifth and final episode of the Ancient Coin Collection podcast. We've really enjoyed producing the series so far. Um, but we thought it wouldn't be right if we didn't discuss a hotly contested topic in the coin world, and that is crime. Crime is part of the story of the Naxos Tetradram. Um, so we'll hear about how this and other coins have been forged, how some have been looted from archaeological sites, um, and others have been illegally taken out of their country of origin and sold under false provenance. So pretty juicy stuff. So, Tim, I understand this is a pretty controversial area. Why is that?

SPEAKER_01 0:50

Well, first thing to say is that um when I was writing the book, a number of people, um, friends, but also people in the numismatic community advised me against it just because it's it's such a controversial area. Uh, and because we were writing the object biography, the story, uh, the life of these coins, um, I felt that it was important to include this aspect. The reason why it's controversial is because of the implication uh of wrongdoing uh more broadly, which is which is not valid. So there are examples of forgeries and fakes, there are examples of misrepresentation of provenance, there are examples of coins that have been looted and trafficked uh against against the law. Um, but the vast majority of coins that come to market and are sold at auction uh do not have these characteristics. And so the controversy was very much around the implication that that the whole industry is tainted. There's also the broader debate which the which the public is is aware of about um whether museums or or even collectors should have uh artifacts that have their origin elsewhere. Um you you're you're very familiar with the Elgin Marble debate, but um this was this was also uh the subject uh of a book by Dan Hicks uh called The Brutish Museum, sort of about the uh Benin Bronzes. Um and so that whole question about you know, should should these objects be in museums outside their country of origin? Should private collectors be able to hold things that really should be in the public domain, that there's a broader controversy here.

SPEAKER_00 2:42

Yeah, because it uh in the course of my degree, we had a module called Engage in Greece, uh, and we spoke about the Elgin marbles and the topic of repatriation. Um and it is true that when you're dealing with antiquities, it's part of the conversation, and you need to consider like the emotional, the economic, and the legal arguments, you know, for and against. So you potentially open Pandora's box um and upset, you know, a lot of people. How did you keep a lid on this topic?

SPEAKER_01 3:17

So my my background was I studied law uh and I actually did my doctorate in public international law. So my starting point was to look at the applicable laws uh governing um uh cultural property, including coins, um, and and to start from there. What were the rules? When were they introduced? How did they apply? Um, and then when I was looking at cases of wrongdoing, I tried to take a very much a fact-based approach. There's a lot of hearsay and chit-chat and gossip. Um, I tried to avoid that. Um, and where possible, um, we we'll talk later about one uh case that came to court. I I got hold of the court papers and went through the depositions uh from those. So I tried to make it um sit within the context of the legal rules and also make it fact-based. Um, then when we were gathering evidence and it was more subjective, so for example, looking at examples of the Naxos Tetradam from photographs and coming up with red flags that might indicate whether something was a forgery or not. Um, I didn't um make specific comments about specific coins because I, in most cases, I hadn't actually seen and held those coins and hadn't tested them. So I talked in generalities rather than specifically. So I I don't know. It's it's a fine line to walk once you've decided to engage on this topic, but that's those were some of the ways in which I tried to mitigate the risk of uh falling foul.

SPEAKER_00 4:54

I think that sounds like a sensible approach, you know, keeping it as objective as possible in a potentially murky area. So for the listeners, can you elucidate the legal framework for coins?

SPEAKER_01 5:07

Yeah. So there have been various rules, both in national legislation and and international treaties governing cultural property, including coins, for some time. But the watershed moment was uh 1970 and the Paris Treaty or Convention on the Essentially the Trafficking of cultural property. Uh and what that did was it it established a basis for uh a common view on the rules and um a commitment from the signatories to incorporate those rules into their national legislation. And the the core, the main thing that it decided without getting too legalistic, uh, was that you can't illegally move stuff out of one country to another from this date, um, and that all of the people who signed the treaty would put in place legislation to stop that. Um, now the one of the controversial aspects of this treaty was it had a principle, it's gonna sound very legalistic, of non-retroactivity, which meant that it was forward-looking. So it stopped people moving um coins in this case from one country to another, but only after the date of the treaty. So things that had happened beforehand, including things that were now in museums and had long before moved, were not governed by this treaty. It was only new stuff. And so, in a sense, it actually protected. If you had a coin in the British Museum, it couldn't leave uh the UK and go back to its country of origin uh because it would violate the treaty. So it actually protected those who'd established uh collections. Um, but the main focus was to try to stop forward-looking um uh future uh trafficking.

SPEAKER_00 6:59

Which is why we mentioned in episode uh four that that provenance adds economic value. Absolutely that it's quite important. Uh, and for for ancients, I know that like us dealers and auction houses, we're subject to very strict code of conduct. Um, and we have to be very careful when we're importing from country to country. Um, now there's an aspect that I find fascinating, and that's all the different ways that you can entirely fake or misrepresent a coin. Um, and I'm not at this point yet, but I would love to learn how to spot a fake. To begin with, can you give a simple definition of what a fake is?

SPEAKER_01 7:40

So a fake is a replica that is misrepresented as an authentic coin. So that that's there are replicas. If you go to museums, quite often they make replicas of coins in their collections, but they're sold as replicas, and they usually have something on them that makes it very clear that they're replicas. It is the reproduction of a coin and pretending or representing it as genuine that is the problem, and that's what a fake is.

SPEAKER_00 8:11

I see. So it's it's about intention to deceive.

SPEAKER_01 8:14

Absolutely. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 8:16

So when a person buys a fake handbag, it's not a forgery, but it's just a trademark infringement. Indeed. So so in the coin world, how does one produce a forgery?

SPEAKER_01 8:29

So first thing to say is that we think of forgeries as a modern phenomena, but actually, forgeries have always existed. Um, and you would have forgeries for the purpose of you know, having a fake five-pound note, um, a forgery of a coin in a contemporary time. So in ancient times, people would, you know, take a base of metal and plate it to look like a coin and then pass it off. So those are forgeries for the purpose of you know exchange and money, but um the main focus is on modern forgeries, and uh those are uh which are produced for the purpose of misleading people. There are three main techniques. Uh the first one is casting, and you take uh uh an impression of uh a genuine coin, and then you create a cast based on that, and then the the resulting coin, yeah, um, particularly if you treat it so it looks like it's got a uh a pattern and it's it's it's an old coin, it's sometimes quite difficult to see that it's a fake. Um the second is electro-typing, and this was a technique that is a derivative of printing, and you create uh two sides, you put the the sides of the coins together and you create uh a coin. Um this uh was uh developed by uh Mr. Reddy um in the uh 19th century and his son subsequently, and 800 of these electrotype reproductions were produced for the British Museum, and they were sold as replicas rather than forgeries, but some have come into the market and been misrepresented as genuine coins, so those would qualify as forgeries. And the third category, uh and this in a way is the most interesting, is where um a talented engraver, modern engraver, will actually create a new die and then use that die to hammer uh coins, sometimes using um an ancient coin as the base, uh but of a of a of a less desirable uh type of coin. Yeah. Um and those are the ones that in a sense cause the most trouble because they're hammered. Uh the metal may be ancient, but it's not not the coin. And and those uh those are the ones that uh you have to be very, very careful of as well.

SPEAKER_00 10:55

These are the things that demand the most skill. Yes. And you're a bit like the the greatest art forgers.

SPEAKER_01 11:01

Well, you're it it's it's funny you should say that, but the the um when you read about forgeries and particularly the people who forged or or or recreated dyes, they talk about the schools. It's almost like a you know a school of art. And and you have the Beirut school or the Padawa school or the Bulgarian school. And it I mean it's it's it's and it is in a sense it's tribute to the talent and artistry of those that are recreating these dyes.

SPEAKER_00 11:33

So let's talk about how our Naxos coin has been directly affected by these.

SPEAKER_01 11:38

So uh we're not going to name specific coins with with one exception. Um, so we went through uh the 78 coins that we had identified. Um, when I say we, myself and the research team, um, went through those and we came up with 10 red flags for something that looks a bit dodgy. Um and uh they were things like it's the wrong weight, um, it's the wrong size, it looks too good to be true. Anything that looks too good to be true, usually is usually is. Um and things where the diaxis, uh, which is how the how the obverse and reverse relate to one another, um where there's you know imperfections in the surface that look like they may have bubbles, uh, which is an evidence of casting, um, or where the provenance is really dubious and doubtful. So came up with a set of red flags and applied those to the 78 and found that um actually as many as 12 had potential red flags, um, and maybe six had multiple red flags. Um we did not call them out because many of these have been sold at auction and all were part of museum collections, for the simple reason that you just don't know until you inspect uh a coin. Um, there was one coin um that came out as having multiple red flags uh from uh the Hunterian collection uh in Glasgow. And uh in that case, uh two eminent numismatists, um uh Mr. MacDonald in the late 19th century and Herbert Kahn himself have both said this is a suspect coin, probably a forgery. And um even even the Hunterian says probable forgery. So I went and inspected uh the coin. I'm not an expert, it has to be said. I didn't do any metallic and uh metallurgy analysis or anything or any dating or anything of that kind, but I just held it in hand and it's a lot lighter than most of the coins. Most of them are 17 grams. I think this was more like 15 grams, so quite a bit lighter. Um, it it felt very flat. Um, it looked and felt maybe like a cast coin, but then there was a problem with calling it a forgery because the provenance can be traced back to the 1760s. That would give it one of the oldest provenances of any Naxos Tetradram anywhere. And so you have what looks like a forgery, what has been called a forgery by a number of people, and you have this provenance. And they didn't produce forgeries of the Naxos coin at that time. Um, we'll talk in a moment about um Becker, the famous forger, but he never did a forgery of that because it wasn't a very well-known coin at that time, and therefore there wasn't the incentive to do it. So there is something really odd about that, and I've discussed it with a number of people. Some have suggested maybe someone switched it at some stage in the process, maybe in the 19th century, uh, but we don't know. So um my conclusion.

SPEAKER_00 14:53

Can you imagine if that was the case?

SPEAKER_01 14:55

Well, it's it it explains it. I mean, how do you how do you have such a long provenance and then then it's a uh a fake coin? Um, what I I wrote up my uh conclusions and shared them with the museum, and and I think they filed them away because I said unproven, and that was better than forged. So so unproven, uh case unproven was, and and I gave uh gave a gave a talk to Hunterian uh about that topic. So so um I those those are the types of forgeries and some of the ways in which you can detect them.

SPEAKER_00 15:25

So can you tell me a bit more about this Becker character?

SPEAKER_01 15:28

So Karl Wilhelm Becker um was um uh you know probably the most famous or infamous forger um in the 19th century. Um he uh he produced quite a lot of dyes, so it was in that third category of re-engraving dyes. He was very talented. I think he he grew up in a um a merchant family. I think they were in the wine business. So I think he was even seconded to Bordeaux to uh work in the family business for a while, but his real passion was art and ancient history. Uh, and he then apprenticed at a mint and developed the craft of of engraving uh uh coins, and he produced some absolutely stunning um coins. Um he didn't produce the Naxos coin, and the reason why was he was working his way through a book on if the almost like Harlem Burke's the greatest ancient coins, he he had a book by Mionet, I think it was a French numismatist, who had gone through all the ancient coins and um categorized them by rarity and value at auction. And so because the Naxos coin wasn't well known at the time, or the Naxos tetradram from 460 BC wasn't well known at the time, it wasn't in Mune's book. Um, it was only became famous and desirable after uh 1852 when they found a lot of them in a hoard in Schizo. We talked about that previously. And so even though Becker was doing his work after the schizo hoard, he was using the he was working his way through I will produce forgeries of the most valuable coins, and it wasn't in there, so he didn't include it. But he did he did do the later Naxos Tetradram and uh because it was in the Myonnay book, but he didn't do the earlier one. Uh so so Becker was an amazing uh um you know engraver uh and forger. But uh as as you know, I mean you you I think you've you've uh you're familiar with the um George Hill's work from the British Museum about Becker. Um and so Becker's Becker said, I you know, I'm doing this to create replicas so I can make something precious accessible to a broader audience. Yeah, well, he did try to fob off.

SPEAKER_00 18:03

Yeah, and it ended up in the market, either directly or indirectly. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 18:07

And yeah, and it's quite a sad story. I mean, it's not like he made loads of money from uh forgeries. Um at the end of his life, he was traipsing around the courts of Europe trying to sell off his uh dyes, um, saying, you know, this is something that really should be in one of the big collections rather than you know available to the public for for ill ill-gotten purposes. Um so um, and and I don't think he died a particularly wealthy or happy uh person.

SPEAKER_00 18:37

No. It's interesting that he always protested his innocence, though. Yeah, he maintained it. But yeah, the the director of the BM uh when he wrote this book uh in 1924, he was he was pretty damning in his opinion of him. Um so we mentioned it a little bit at the beginning of the pod, but uh let's talk looting.

SPEAKER_01 18:58

So uh and this is this is controversial, but it's it's also just a question of time. So, how many ancient coins in the market have come from uh authorized archaeological digs where the authorities decided to have a portion of them made available to the market? That does happen, but frankly, it's not it's not very common. Yeah. So most coins have come through what now would be defined as illicit means, but those were not necessarily illegal at the time that they were uh that they came to market. Um so if we take the Naxos coin as a sort of case study, um when Herbert Kahn did his work in 1944 um documenting these coins, he came up with 56 uh examples. And that's pre-1970. So almost by definition, any coin that Kahn um uh cites is is a legitimate okay coin because 1970 was the watershed. Um when we updated Kahn, we found 78. So we found 22 uh new new inverted commas coins, and so some of those were in collections that Khan wasn't aware of as a minority, maybe up to six of them. But the the remainder, um you know, remaining coins, so 16 coins, um, were uh have come to market since Khan. Now some of them have come to market before that 1970 quarter shed, quite a few, so maybe six to ten, have come to market since then. And then it's not like they're tied to particular hoards. There was there was a hoard in um 1980, the Randazzo hoard, um, where there are five coins that came to market, but but most of them have come by you know questionable means, which means that they've probably come through the same route as ancient antiquities have come to market generally. So, what is that route? Um, you know, they uh ancient antiquities generally come to market through um in Italy. Um, there's the the sort of tomb raider, the tamboroli. Um these uh are individuals, one man band usually, who are illicitly um uh finding and uh excavating archaeological sites in order to find artifacts. They they might say that they're you know just you know digging up their fields and doing agriculture and they come across them, but quite often they're they're expecting they are deliberately targeting areas that are thought to be uh um uh uh have ancient ruins and they are illegally extracting those. Um we know that generally um there is a net there was a network. Work of dealers in those in Italy, called the Cordata, where the results of those illegal excavations were moved. They were taken out of the country, quite often put in places like the Geneva Freeport. Sometimes they were brought to market in some auction houses in the 70s. Sotheby's and others were known to have sold artifacts generally that were essentially being laundered so that they have some provenance. And then they would be sold to collectors or museums. So there's a whole network that is that is well known. And it's likely that coins went through all part of the same network.

SPEAKER_00 22:54

See, I had read about this with regards to antiquities in general. I knew it was a thing, but I didn't realise that it it was the same process in relation to coins. Now, Tim, obviously I know about this, and you know about this, but our listeners won't. Are there any cases of the Naxos coin being illegally brought to market?

SPEAKER_01 23:16

So there's there's one documented case, um, and and it's quite quite recent. Um there was a uh a coin dealer, uh, a London-based coin dealer who was arrested in New York uh for misrepresenting the provenance uh of two coins, one of which was an Axos coin, the other was an Egmar, uh a Brutus coin, uh, at auction, uh, uh, where they were bought by an American buyer. And um so this case went to court. Um in the course of those proceedings, and I I've gone through the papers of that, uh, the individual involved um sort of basically confessed to everything and talked about the Naxos coin and said it had been bought from one of these known looters in Sicily, um, and then uh it had been taken to uh Geneva, uh, it had been bought there. Uh the dealer then tried to acquire a false uh prominence from a French aristocrat. Um, the French aristocrats and he was going to pay for that. The French aristocrat then sort of backed out of doing that. Um, and uh and and but he went to market and and represented as that uh anyway. Uh it didn't sell for a great price. I think the market was a bit suspicious of it. Um, but the EDMA, which was the other coin that went through the same similar process, that was sold for like three million dollars or something, even more. Um, and um so both coins had this falsified provenance. Um the um where we are on that trial, um hasn't uh the individual has not been convicted. Um it is thought that he is cooperating with the authorities. So whatever that whatever that means. But that that was a that that was um the only documented example of um one of these coins uh being illegally uh trafficked and misrepresented. And and the coin itself was repatriated by the attorney, the district attorney of New York to Italy. Uh so Italy has has acquired another Naxos Tetradram. Uh, it's not clear where that's going, um, but they've acquired one as a result of that, and quite a lot of uh these ancient artifacts have been repatriated.

SPEAKER_00 25:39

It'd be great to see where that ends up in the end, yeah, and be able to maybe go over and see it. Yes, you know in its home home country. But yeah, I do remember this case. It's a shame it was all over the media, but yeah, cases like this, it it has the potential to taint in the entire industry, which is yeah, awful really. Um, but um what, if anything, does this tell us about the status of the Naxos Tetradram? Like, should crime be a factor alongside art, history?

SPEAKER_01 26:12

Well, it's it's it's in a sense, so so I think we need a bit of perspective here. Um, you know, most of these coins are not fakes, most of these coins are not illegally uh brought to market. Um, people should not be worried, people should be sensible, yeah, um, they should take precautions, they should only buy from reputable dealers, and those reputable dealers will will follow a code of conduct and will guarantee the authentic authenticity of the coin. But back to the masterpiece question, in a sense, it's a kind of it's a negative complement to a coin. It's only worth uh forging something uh or um breaking the law if something is valuable and it's usually valuable because it has the merits and the attributes of uh of a masterpiece. So, in in this slightly perverse way, um the crimes committed against this coin reinforce its status as a masterpiece.

SPEAKER_00 27:08

So, on that note, that concludes episode five of the Ancient Coin Collection Podcast. Thank you so much for joining me, Tim. I could genuinely talk to you all day, every day. Um, and thank you to everyone who's followed us on this extraordinary journey. Uh, we do really appreciate your support. Um, in addition to our YouTube channel, uh, we are on Spotify and Apple. Uh and we do have a dedicated Instagram account which is at Ancient Coin Collection Podcast. Uh normally I post like the cool coins that I work with, um, clips from the episode and Tim's favourite new order songs. So please keep the comments and questions coming. Um, if you're not yet sick of us, we will be filming a bonus episode. So stick around while we answer some of the many questions that we've received, uh, both from beginners, the pros about our lovely Naxos coin and numismatics in general. So until then, goodbye from me Annabelle Schooling. And me, Tim Wright.