MADAM – I am alarmed at the government’s apparently poor understanding of how the trade works and its relationship with collectors and venerable institutions.
Despite the considerable input from dealers, auctioneers, trade bodies and museums into the ivory consultation, we still seem to be heading towards an unworkable fudge on ivory, not least regarding the ‘de minimis’ clauses.
Unless this is seriously addressed, literally millions of antique items will be little more than scrap, sacrificed on a well-meaning but ill-informed iconoclastic bonfire. More likely, those objects will become bogged down in an irreconcilable mire of ‘is it or isn’t it’, as a bouchon of gargantuan proportions drowns the ‘experts’ in an unworkable licensing system.