Featured Ancient artefacts on ebay ... legit?

I appreciate we here are more concerned with antiques than antiquities, but I'm puzzled by some items for sale on ebay that are purported to be from the ancient world; Egypt, Greece, Rome etc., but appear incredibly cheap and plentiful.

Here are a couple of sellers offering these kinds of items:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/lux_market/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_ipg=&_from=

https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/antiquiti/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_ipg=&_from=&rt=nc&LH_BIN=1

Here is a link for the search thread, *ancient egyptian statue* within the category, *antiquities>egyptian*

https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/37905/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=ancient+egyptian+statue.

Can all this stuff, or even any of it, be legit at these prices? Many of the sellers have been trading there for years and have great reps. Baffled.

 

Of course not! Real connoisseurs won't buy these, so, they will not leave a neg...
It is same for antique Chinese jades, precious watches coming from Ukraine and so on...
If it is too good to be true, it is surely not

Welcome Gertrude!

 

Welcome Gertrude.
Some members do know about antiquities, we even have some archeologists here.
As kyratango said, it is too good to be true.
I have seen similar listings for years now, sellers come and go. But the common thing is, they simply have too many items, generally of excellent quality, many of them would be very rare if old.

The fact that the seller of the second link throws in brand new 'Tibetan silver' (= base white metal) dorjes and similar items, means he has good trade contacts with China, home of the fakes.
Another telltale sign is that the titles of the dorje listings are 'old Tibetan silver tool use is unkown further research required'. Similar new dorjes can be found in any New Age shop and even in gift shops.

 

Some antiquities can be bought remarkably cheaply for their age. I'd not buy them on Ebay, though. There's shops near the British Museum selling genuine shabtis and faience beads.

There was a bloke on the old Ebay boards based on Bali who sold the dodgiest stuff going for thousands.

 

Also, given there is only a 0.00000001% chance that any of the stuff is the real deal, if it did turn out to be real I would request 2 oven mitts to even touch the object.

 

eBlech sellers will say pretty much anything they can get away with to sell items of questionable origin.....

 

Hello, Gertrude. No, it can't all, most of it is not. Scrolling through the Egyptian antiquities I saw a couple of scarabs that might be authentic, based on the little I know about them, but virtually all of the rest of the items looked like modern reproductions. Spending some time just going through these lists begins to give you an idea whether certain things are really 'rare' or in impossibly good condition.

I have bought antiquities 4 times on eBay: 2 were identified as being from the Georgian period; 1 was assumed to be contemporary with the 1930s ring it is mounted in; 1 seller was not sure so priced as if not. In other words, none was being promoted as an antiquity. A couple were educated guesses on my part that subsequent research verified; that research led to my recognizing others.

Unless you have absolute faith in the dealer, it is never a good idea to buy antiquities if you have no knowledge of your own about them. Genuine ancient scarabs, coins, legionnaire's rings are not especially rare; neither are fakes. In many countries it is not legal to export antiquities from that country. I believe Egypt falls into this category. Anything from sellers in Asia or Eastern Europe/Balkans is suspect. Study before you buy.

 

yep scammed me for nine hundred bucks

 

Maja? Yeah.

 

I remember him. He ended up making his sales private on his feedback page.

 

He was as bent as a nine bob note as we say here.

Agreed on coins and other detector stuff. There's some detectorists who sell at car boots and you can buy bits for a few pounds. I've got Roman glass shards which I think I paid a tenner for.

Egypt does allow lesser stuff out: faience beads, small scarabs and shabtis of no major interest.

Nice stuff here: https://antiquities.co.uk/shop/

There used to be a couple of retail shops called Ancient Arts that sold bits, but I think they've gone.

 

A few people seemed to have an ongoing feud with him.

 

There is a ton of "authentic Pre-Columbian" objects going for less than $50.

 

One might think that a 100% FB rating indicates sales of authentic items; but as alluded to by others, it does not.
A seller (and I know of many) may sell nothing but fakes, and yet have a 100% rating, and that pattern is common on ebay.
Bidders who are knowledgeable about the area involved will know the items are fakes, and will not bid. The remaining sales, and all the FB, represents bidders who either have no knowledge of that area, do not know their items are fakes, and so are happy with their purchase; or bidders who are well aware the items are fake, and hope to resell at a higher price.
Result: 100% positive FB.

 

Thank you all for the full replies. I can't believe they get away with it!

 

EBay is not in the business of authenticating anything; it's strictly caveat emptor.

 

I'll add an "amusing" and true story, omitting the names to foil any avid robots....
But there is an ebay seller whose specialty is or was fake NW Coast masks. He listed one or two every week, over a period of 10-20 years; saying they were genuine old native or "aboriginal" work, with a little story as to how he came to have them; almost all going unsold or sometimes selling for $50 or so.
The apparent strategy was to saturate the market with the listings, so that over time they would begin to appear genuine, by sheer repetition; as uninformed bidders started to feel that the items must be real, because they'd been seen so often on ebay. And eventually you'd start to see the items resold by secondary buyers, with the same little story about their origin.
One of the masks appeared on the well-known "Masks of the world" site as genuine; with the same little story. This seller and his partner have a 100% FB rating.....but if you ever see a NW Coast "native" mask that comes with a little story about how it was carved in Canada by a tree-surgeon; or collected in Canada by a member of the merchant marine in the 1960s.....
RUN!
A similar strategy has been practiced by a well-known "carver" or importer of fakes, from Vancouver BC. He will donate one of his masks to a charity auction, with an inflated story about how well-made it is, and how he himself is First Nations, and listing the value as $4000 or so...so as to put this false information into public view via the charity's publicity; then when unsuspecting buyers see his market stall, they are thinking that $400 for one of his "native" masks is a real bargain.....when they are really imports worth about $40.

 

There are a ton of fake artifacts created expressly for the tourist trade. If you stop at a roadside stand in Egypt you are going to be offered fake goods upwards of 99% of the time.

Now this doesn't mean that real artifacts and coins are not available in some venues and they may be rather inexpensive due to the absurd amount that are dug up every year. It seems that in some cities in Europe and North Africa that many excavations in long inhabited urban areas will turn up large numbers of artifacts and coinage creating a glut on the market.

Below is an article from this past week

Construction Workers Stumble Across Old Pots With 1,300 Pounds Of Ancient Roman Coins Inside
https://www.archaeology-world.com/c...th-1300-pounds-of-ancient-roman-coins-inside/

 

This guy?
I told a seller once that only an 18 wheeler could have collected as many of the same masks as this guy and his son did.........




and your other well know carver lifter one of my frontlets from my eBay photo...and copied it !!!

this guy..!



beware this siggy painted ' F ' and date.....also...ABC....