Wednesday 28 May 2014

Going, Going.... Gone. One More Hoiked Early Medieval Artefact


Another one with skin problems
An eBay auction finishes in five minutes:
Length 40mm, copper alloy Anglo Saxon equal arm brooch, reasonable green patination, traces of iron pin. Please see pics as guide to condition [read: cos I'm too lazy to try to put anyfink in words].
£13.00 13 bids [Update, sold for £16.76, 14 bids ] dealer (Coinspopup70), location: "Essex United Kingdom" who "May not post to Poland" it says. This is because the Polish customs men are vigilant when it comes to movement of cultural property, and would stop it and ask awkward questions, and the importer would not have the answers because the seller says nowt up-front.

It also says, "No questions or answers have been posted about this item". Not even by the PAS ("policing eBay" don't you know?) and the nice BM lady who not long ago was enthusing about these caterpillar ("ansate") brooches which she found on the PAS database?

 I'm no expert on Anglo-Saxon fibulology but this one screams 'probably Continental' to me. The French journalist was asking whether finds dug up elsewhere are not passed off as British finds. I think they are, and I'd love to hear from the finder of this one with his story. This is exactly the reason why we need better documentation of the entry of dugup artefacts onto the market, including (especially) from source-country England.

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