ACC Program Area: The Project on Reproductions - Background

Background

In 1998 the antiques & collectibles industry had a window of opportunity to legislate permanent dating and marking of reproductions by expanding the federal law - The Hobby Protection Act - when the act came up for review and renewal. This law has had a very positive affect on the marking and dating of manufactured reproductions but unfortunately covers a very narrow area of collectibles--numismatic and political items. Larry Krug, NAC spokesperson, explains, "At the time of passage of the Hobby Protection Act back in 1974, the American Numismatic Association (ANA) and the American Political Items Collectors (APIC) were the driving forces in pushing for legislation, both collecting areas having major reproduction problems. The APIC had the political clout in Congress (which at that time included several of their own members) to see the bill sail through and be signed into law by President Richard Nixon. I was president of APIC at the time, and we hailed the new law as a great victory for coin and political collectors. In retrospect, we should have made the law more inclusive to other collecting areas in need of such protection, however in those days there was little dialogue between the various hobby areas and many of them were certainly not organized in clubs as we have today. Expanding the Hobby Protection Act was the intent of hundreds of advocates in 1998 who clearly articulated in messages to the Federal Trade Commission the need for expansion of the Act. Unfortunately, without public hearings or comment, the commissioners simply renewed the Hobby Protection Act without changes."

The Project on Reproductions is intended to be an organized movement to create appropriate relationships with the manufacturing and commercial industry and the regulatory bodies, and perhaps create new legislation which will serve the needs of the antiques & collectibles industry in total - perhaps something the Hobby Protection Act could not ever have done.