As ANA chief judge, I had already made a ruling that the Liberty Dollar exhibit could be shown, based on Coin World's reporting in April, but the ANA general counsel wanted the Charlotte US attorney's office to put in writing what Coin World had reported. So we did not go ask a different government office for an opinion - we went right back where Coin World had obtained their original information.

However, this time the response was not as benign as it had been last spring. Not only would they not confirm that holding and exhibiting the material was not in itself criminal, they made statements that it is contraband and would be subject to seizure. We went back with a request to allow exhibiting the material if accompanied by a statement that the items were being exhibited for educational purposes only. The office would not respond further.

ANA has an exhibit rule that says "Forged, spurious, or counterfeit material and copies or replicas may not be displayed unless each such item is described as such in the exhibit and unless such items are displayed for educational purposes. No such item will be displayed in violation of United States law or government regulations."

It's the second sentence that applies here - if the material is contraband, then it violates one or more statutes or regulations. With a US attorney calling it contraband, we had no choice but to disallow the exhibit.

Hopefully someone will be able to bring reason to the government's attention and get this advisory opinion reversed. The offending medals are no more than silver rounds, and any number of other issuers' products bear the same features that the government found so offensive in this case.

To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see:LIBERTY DOLLARS MAY BE SUBJECT TO SEIZURE(www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v14n37a19.html)