Turkish Seller Offers Erdfrisch papyri on EBay

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The Scripture blogs are now discussing freshly-surfaced papyri, this time a sale on eBay. The current threads seem to begin with a post on The Quaternion (An Academic Blog about the New Testament and Early Christianity: Manuscripts, Texts, and Contexts, run by Brice Jones):

 Just today (29 October 2012), a seller on eBay posted an auction with the title, “Greek-Coptic Roman Rare Egyptian Uncial PapyrusFragments.” This seller (“mixantik”), who is from Turkey, has been auctioning hundreds of ancient Coptic and Greek papyrus fragments in lots on eBay for at least a year. I have contacted this seller on several different occasions to inquire about some of his papyri. He tells me that all of his papyri come from Egypt, although it is not clear precisely where in Egypt. But it is clear that someone has discovered a very large quantity of papyri. A colleague has suggested to me that perhaps the locals are continuing to find papyri in Oxyrhynchus, which is a possible scenario. The papyri that are sold by this dealer are 100% authentic; this can be verified by an analysis of the handwriting from the images the seller posts on eBay—usually very good images. I check eBay daily, with the search phrase “papyrus fragment,” to see if this seller (or any other) is auctioning off papyri. This seller's previous lots have sold for pennies, anywhere from $20 to $300.

Yes, and I see from his feedback that the owner of a certain "responsible antiquities collectors" discussion list has recently been one of his customers (#320890937385), I wonder whether he applied his own list's "Code of Ethics" to these purchases? Yes I mean Tim Haines. Other dealers are also recognisable in the list of those leaving feedback.

In the comments we read:

Most of his fragments are in fact Greek. It would seem that, given the quantity of Greek fragments that he has sold over the last year or so, someone has made a big find. In the images he posts, there is dirt all over the papyri, which tells me these are coming straight from the ground.

Anyway "Mixantik" is (despite the claim to be based in the USA) based in Istanbul, and formerly traded under the name of "Yasasgroup" (on eBay Jan-Oct 2008), but as "Mixantik" since Oct 2008. Both in his former incarnation, as well as the first months of operation under the new name is eBay sales consisted mainly of Ottoman antiques, but also Coptic antiques (including pages ripped from 11th and 14th century Bibles), so potentially originally coming from Egypt (less likely Sudan) - so how are they coming on the market? From January 2009 alongside these items, the first pieces of Coptic textiles start to appear in the descriptions attached to the feedback, some clearly labelled "Roman Egypt". From February 2009 the first papyrus fragments started coming onto the market. So they've been sold for three years right under everybody's noses, along with all sorts of other stuff, with a marked Egyptian bias. The current spate of the increased participation of 'dugups' in this dealer's offer dates back to June 1010. This dealer has also sold a fossil or two (one to Tim Haines). A few days ago he sold something which he described as "Oxyrhynchus papyri fragments" - dealer's blague or the actual provenance?

There is a firm called "Yasasgroup" in Istanbul, this imports and exports building materials, stone, marble, fibreglass mat etc. One wonders whether any of their products come from Egypt. Notably a "Yasasgroup" has a series of Photobucket pics of papyrus fragments here (cached). What, if any, is the connection between the building supplies firm and the antiques/antiquities dealer?

Very probably 'Mixantik', whoever he is, is doing nothing contrary to current Turkish law. Turkey however loudly demands its antiquities back from other countries, one might legitimately ask what Turkey is doing to prevent Turkish dealers selling off the antiquities from other countries (like dismembered medieval Coptic bibles and dugup antiquities from Egypt), and sending them out of the country further afield, to the USA to Britain (Mr Haines) and others. "Mixantik" has been selling masses of what look very much like freshly surfaced archaeological material for three years at least - and are the Turks doing anything about it? If they are not, then why do they expect others to listen to their demands to send back stuff which is not-exactly-freshly-surfaced?

UPDATE Thursday evening:
several "mixantik" auctions have just disappeared, they were of tightly-rolled muddy papyrus scrolls with some letters (?) visible on the outside he called them "dead books".  The scale used in the photos was a CD, better - I suppose - than the fag packet in other of his photos.

UPDATE 4th Nov 2012
Now "Mixantik" has disappeared. 

Vignette: EBay Pappy fragment, going for a song.