Egypt has a coin mintage history since the year 330 BC. It is a history of more than 2300 years. We have a complete bachelor, Master and PhD academic programs dedicated to study coins. It is not a hobby in Egypt, it is much more than this. It is the history of civilization. The Egyptian laws are not written against coins per se. The law addresses any ancient artifacts like documents, statues, anything that is older than 100 years even my grandfather own photo falls under the the law. Any object older than 100 years old needs to be examined and got an authorization from relevant authorities to trade.
In Egypt, every family own a piece of land that can be in the family heritage for 1000 years. In every construction site in Egypt, anyone has a good probability to find a treasure. We are not even allowed to dig deep down in old cities without supervision from certain authorities to make sure not to damage any real ancient sites that may be hidden in your land by mistake. The law is if you own a land in Egypt, you own the surface but whatever is hidden inside the land itself is beyond expectations so it is a public property.
Most Egyptian collectors who bid, buy, sell coins before 1952 are dealing with the inventory of coins outside Egypt due to these legal constraints. The Egyptian collectors community is trying hard to address the government to exclude modern coins from the general law. When we say MODERN we speak since the Othman empire, the year 1517 or at least since Mohammed Ali reform in 1834.
Still it will be great to have NGC branch in Egypt where graders can come to grade the coins inside the country. This needs an invitation from the Collectors society in Egypt in addition to cooperation with the relevant authorities.
