2016-03-23 Wed

A new service looks to pedigree rare ancient coins so they are legal to trade under new European cultural property laws.

This is a serious concern among collectors and museums as many nations claim that coins belonging to their land are technically exported illegally and therefore must be returned. Many countries insist they have the sole rights to their antiquities, fine art and early coins. Among countries where exporting coins is becoming a problem are Bulgaria, China, Greece, Italy, Spain and Turkey. The governments of the United States and Germany are among those that appear to be bending over to comply with the demands of these other nations.

Dr. Jonas Flueck and his wife Pauline Fabre-Flueck recently founded Ex-Numis, a trademark for Lugdunum GmbH., a company in Switzerland that will help re-identify the provenance or pedigree of ancient coins that have been in various collector hands for many years. The Ex-Numis website has a database (built up over many years) represents a library of thousands of auction catalogs from every part of the world.