Dear Members,
ACCG is aware that most of the emails you receive from us are requests for your help with things like commenting to CPAC about the latest proposed MOU disaster – usually with some gloom and doom thrown in for motivational purposes. So it seems more than fair that we share some recent achievements and good news with you, especially since this only happens with your participation and support.
First, despite the ongoing Washington insanity, we have managed to get fifteen bi-partisan co-sponsors for our HR 595, a bill to facilitate the lawful trade of historical coins. In the current climate, this is a significant achievement. We are generally getting a good response to our efforts to attach the bill’s language to Customs legislation in the Senate. Whether any of this goes anywhere in this election year is certainly an open question; but things move incrementally in Washington (some might say glacially), and even if we are back in the same place next year, this year’s progress matters and positions us well for the next Congress. Several ACCG members have helped with this by contacting their Representatives; if you can help in this regard, please email us at accg@accguild.org to discuss further.
For more information about this legislation, please see https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/595/cosponsors and https://accguild.org/news/13463512. And on a related note, discussions are under way on a key international trade agreement that may well offer an opportunity to advance this work; we are already working with several Congressional offices to include the necessary language in the agreement.
While it may seem that our never-ending fights against the Memorandums of Understanding that continue to plague our hobby are almost Sisyphusian in nature, we secured an extremely important victory when we successfully prevented late Roman Republican and Roman Imperial coins from being added to the designated list for the latest Italy MOU. This outcome was achieved as a result of ACCG Board members Randy Myers and Peter Tompa meeting with Italy’s Cultural Attache. Ensuring that collectors continue to have access to these coins from one of the most important European sources is a big win.
ACCG played a big role in funding the purchase of a Roman coin hoard by the Oxfordshire Museum, accomplished under the United Kingdom’s Treasure Act (see https://accguild.org/news/13439566). Not only is this good for relations with our English colleagues, it helps with our ongoing efforts to highlight the success of the Treasure Act and the related Portable Antiquities Scheme as far more successful approaches to combatting looting of historical sites and illicit sales of ancient coins and antiquities. As we fight the MOUs and similar, pointless restrictions, having a viable alternative to propose greatly strengthens our case.
Related to this, ACCG executive director Keith Twitchell had a Guest Editorial on this subject published in the November 2025 issue of The Numismatist. ANA members can access it here.
Also helping us in the fight against unfair, overbroad restrictions on importing historic and cultural items are the partnerships we are developing with a wide variety of like-minded organizations. Among those we have collaborated with recently on these issues are American Numismatic Association, B’nai B’rith, CINOA, Committee for Cultural Policy, Global Heritage Alliance, the International Association of Professional Numismatists and JIMENA (Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa). The more allies we enlist, the stronger our collective voice will be as these battles continue. If you are part of an organization that might be willing to join in, please email us at accg@accguild.org to discuss further.
Last but hardly least, after being stagnant for a while, our membership is growing again, to the point where we have actually had to upgrade our plan with our website host in order to accommodate the increased number of members. Look for word soon on a membership contest ACCG will be running this spring and summer. Again, there is strength in numbers, and we want to keep this momentum going.
We appreciate your engagement with ACCG tremendously. For more than twenty years, ACCG has been a collector-run, collector focused nonprofit advocating for ancient coin collectors against government overreach. The time you spend making those CPAC comments, your financial support with your dues, the comments we receive from many of you – these all help demonstrate that ours is a vital, valuable organization that makes a difference, at every level from national politics to your individual experience with this hobby we all love. Thank you for being a part of the solution.
