member of the British Numismatic Trade Association, American Numismatic Society, Trustworthy & Transparent Trading, American Numismatric Association, & Ancient Coin Collectors Guildbut nevertheless, despite all these alleged "safeguards"
has this well known eastern european cast fake crap Lysimachos Tetradrachm for sale, Buy It Now for a mere $678 including an "Illustrated Certificate of Authenticity".
He suggests the Timeline coin (the same coin on their website) should be compared to two exactly the same, with the same defects as well, on the coin forgery network, here and here. He adds that he is sure this is an "honest mistake", though how honest is it to issue a certificate of authenticity for an object you cannot say where it came from and when you do not have the expertise to spot what Laubstein says is a "well known east European" fake, and one which is cast and not struck? In fact there are a number of issues with where precisely a number of items being sold by this dealer are coming from, some of which have previously been mentioned on this blog.
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31 comments:
I have contacted Timeline on several occasions about mass produced FAKE Islamic antiques including so called Khorasan style feline incense burners which are coming out of China as tibetan incense burners loosely based on 12th century Khorasan designs.
That's interesting, I'd like to see an example of what you are talking about as I cannot envisage it. Anyway, Mr Timelines seems to have listened to you as I cannot see anything like that there now.
I think the problem is that it seems to me easier to spot something that is 'not quite right' or 'suspicious', I am not so sure how one can actually guarantee authenticity (except if the artefact is 'grounded') on such a wide variety of material as Timelines sells just by looking at it.
Your blog is most helpful, I've had bad dealings with this company myself although that was about ten years ago and I have learned a lot since then. I'm curious what you make of Oxford Labs (trying to pass themselves off as an affiliate of Oxford Authentication Ltd) who provided XRF testing. Upon clicking about us, http://oxford-labs.com/about-us/about-us/ I noticed the listed staff are one former time-line employee and one current. I'd love to know your input on this.
Thomas Kamphuis - very interesting. Mr Hammond is of course welcome to respond here (or post a link if he chooses to respond elsewhere). Please bear in mind what I say in "notes for posting comments" that there is an upper word limit on comments but I do not know what it is, if writing a long comment, ALWAYS save a copy in Word (or email it to yourself) so that if it disappears instead of getting sent you can resurrect it and send it in two segments.
Thanks
Hi,
I'm having some reservations about timeline auctions and this seems to be the place to air them? I was lured into timeline by multiple assurances that they retain a team of respected experts who vet each and every item. I read the biography section of their experts and was reassured that timeline must be a reliable supplier of antiquities. I placed a couple lowest possible minimum bids on three medieval weapons and won. My first sign that something was wrong was no one bid against me at all. I forwarded the auction photos to an highly reputable American expert who immediately told me they look like Victorian copies at best.
I wrote timeline and demanded have the name of the expert who specifically vetted my items. Turns out according to the small print, they don't do any vetting or make any warranties at all!
That's a deception in my opinion. They put a list of experts as prof of their relieablility but what good does that do if the experts dont actually exanine anything?
I have not paid yet and unless time line can explain the discrepancy between their claims of expert vetting and the legal disclaimer in the small print that states clearly they don't vet snything at all. I'm not going to pay.
I am sorry to hear you are having problems with this dealer - not the first it seems. In general, from what I have seen of the market and those in it down the years, I personally would not trust any of them. Don't rely on their advertised 'reputation' but what they offer you, the client, upfront in the way of solid documentation that what they sell is indeed what they say it is. Few of them in fact do it, which should tell you something about the milieu as a whole.
As a matter of fact the status and function of Timeline's "our specialists" does not seem to be specified, you might like to write to John Cherry, their Medieval specialist to ask him for a comment on what you have just bought and what his role is. I cannot see anywhere on the webpage that states that these specialists have examined items sold by the auction house - ibn fact their terms and conditions section, if you read them, explicitly says quite the opposite.
The problem hinges on what the auction description looks like - can you post links? The problem with not paying is that by taking this action you are in breach of contract and might be taken to court, if you paid, got the goods and then returned them stating that theuy are not as described, you'd be on the right side of the law (which applies to buyers as well as sellers).
In any case, as you say you offered the lowest possible bid and won all three, you are not as badly out of pocket as you could have been. Many collectors get 'stung' once or twice in their collecting career by buying dodgy artefacts which look convincing as advertised but 'in the hand' are not what they seemed. They treat it as part of the learning experience.
Anyway, it would be good if these items were indeed Victorian replicas and not 1970s Chinese tat - I'd say the former were collectable and part of social history in their own right. If you decide to pay up and keep them, they will still be displayable and fun to wave around - and no damage will have been done to the historical record by you having them. And when you tire of them, make it a challenge to get more back from them than you paid but NOT by dishonestly representing them as authentic medieval weapons, but by making an eloquent and intelligent case why the truly discerning collector would be interested in objects made in the period of Victorian romanicisma and historicism (Gothic novelsm, rise of interest in the Arthurian romances etc.).
I personally would recommend staying away in future from dealers who you feel are dodgier than they may look from their flashy websites.
I ran into the same problem too with time line.
Today, they have threatened me to take me to court despite the fact that I have insisted not to pay for the item, as I do not believe on the item authenticity
A reader has contacted me and asked me to delete his many comments originally posted under this text of mine (above):
"Paul Barford: could you erase the comments/thread I have made on Timeline Original/Timeline Auctions. I am in the process in sorting things out with them, and don't want any longer to have my posts in the thread [...] Kind regards, Thomas Kamphuis"
I have done what he asked, which of course all takes time.
I really object to third parties using MY blog merely as a place to TROLL somebody else, taking up my time and space to do so, involving me and my blog to some extent in their private conflict, but most of all wasting everybody's time by not having the guts and good sense to post something they will stand by. I object to Mr Kamphuis (apparently a collector https://pl.pinterest.com/vikingmuseum/) piggybacking on MY blog simply in order to further his own interests by using it to put pressure on a dealer only to withdraw his comments when he forces the dealer to 'sort things out' with him. This blog is about collectors, not for them. Run your own blog Mr Kamphuis and post there your obsessive, detailed and ephemeral gripes with whoever you want.
Rather than deleting the texts on what bad eggs Timeline auctions are, far more instructive would have been if Mr Kemphuis had written a text explaining how the matter was "sorted out" which would have been to the credit of the dealer that the collector wishes now to hide that he had written reams of words attacking, words which have been up here for a long while for everyone to see, some of them since 5th September 2015. Mr Kamphuis's apology to the dealer might have been in order here - and an apology to me most certainly is.
Very interesting comments about this company. I've been following its auctions for the last 4-5 years and once you analyze the catalogues and compare small ítems like roman brooches, statuettes, etc. You realize that sometimes these tenders include pieces that are, at least, hightly suspicious.
One story. 2-3 years ago I won a Timeline auction for a roman lock with one nice decoration (head with eastern cap). Some months later I saw two lock plates with identical, no similar, decoration being sold by am eBay seller know for selling forgeries. One month later the same pieces appeared in a Timeline auction. I contacted Timeline to convey muy doubts. At the same time the eBay seller put for sale new lock plates... First reply = all our pieces are verified by our experts. I sent a 6-7 slides ppt with pictures, details, etc. Explaining that 6 ancient pieces with identical decorations and this background deserved some further study, they replied the same. All good. I warned them that I would send the presentation with my conclussions to antiquities sellers associations, etc. And the refunded the money.
I dont doubt that major pieces are carefully checked but when you want to have over 1.000 pieces auctions, there is a very real risk to give green light to usual gallery brooches, knives, etc. That are fakes.
And of course not a word from the cowardly time-wasting collector, Mr Kamphuis.
As someone who’s interested in collecting but have no real knowledge - the prices for Timeline Auctions often (usually) seem shockingly low.
I started hearing about them through the Tumblr account “Archaic Wonder”, which posts links to Timeline Auctions so frequently that I wonder if they’re connected in some way.
And of course still not a word from the cowardly time-wasting collector, Mr Thomas Kamphuis. He owes an apology (see above).
Timeline Auctions recently informed me that I had won a bid that I did not place.
They have contacted me twice for payment including 'storage charges' in the last notice making the total amount due around $500. They have ignored my request to cancel the bid, but they will not. What can I do?
Gerald Vanslambrouck
Timeline Auctions informed me that my bid had won an item that I did not bid on. I asked them to cancel the bid, but instead have received two requests for payment including 'storage charges' for a total of over 300 Pounds. What can I do?
I am new to this Blog, but am very interested in the chain regarding Timeline. I have purchased a few coins from them in the past (which were fine), but am considering bidding on a Medieval sword they are offering now. Candidly I am also new to the Medieval weapons collecting area, although I do have some 17th Century pieces acquired elsewhere some time ago. I would be interested in anyone else's experience with Medieval weapons acquired from Timeline in recent years. From website photos some of the swords look to be in very clean and good preserved condition relative even to some museum examples I have seen. Cause to worry about good fakes?
Hmm. Something to think about. The prime leitmotif of THIS blog, the one you are writing to, is that the archaeological resource is damaged by selfish buyers who'll buy unpapered artefacts (portable antiquities that have no documentation of legal origins, no documentation of the transfer of title, no documentation of legal movement between countries). Here the intersts of (responsible) collectors and conservationists cross. If the sword was made in 2008 by Slimy Fred the Faker in a garage in Sunderland, it'll have no documentation of these things. If it was illegally dug up in a the underground of the chapel of a ruined Lebanese Crusader castle and smuggled to Britain, it will have no documentation of these things. If the seller has ensured that the items he has in the stockroom are of legal origins and he has title to sell will be happy to share the documents of that with you - no excuses. If the seller offer excuses instead of proof, walk away, it's probably either illegally obtained (and thus you cannot acquire title) or fake.
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