Saturday 24 September 2022

Someone Desperately Wants to Sell me a "Sumarian" Antiquity


Whenever I go to eBay I usually end up 'watching' several antiquities. Usually facetiously or with an intent to later write about them.. Which means I often get notifications from sellers desperate to offload their crap. This is one I received from some dealer with rather high prices for what they're flogging (art-ifact_saleroom, location: Al nud area, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, on ebay since: Oct 17, 2017):
Because you showed interest in this item, the seller sent you this private offer.
A few other interested buyers also received this offer – it won’t last long. Hurry and take advantage right away!
Offer: $888.80
Discount $222.20
Offer valid 48h

Message from art-ifact_saleroom:
Here's your chance to get this item at a great price!

Near eastern beautiful sumarian stone plaque of a king museum qua...

Item ID: 203914305857
Buy It Now price: $1,111.00
Your offer: $888.80
Offer expires: Sep-26 17:58:06 PDT Seller: art-ifact_saleroom(77)
Well, messers art-ifact_saleroom, a little tip. If you want buyers to trust your judgement and knowledge as sellers of antiquities, at least get the spelling right. It helps not to give the potential customer that you are seli-literate buffoons. So the shopfront information "about us" should have been run through a spellchecker and the writer desirous of doing business worldwide could have learnt to turn 'all caps' off:
HELLO! WELCOME TO OUR EBAY SHOP. WE SELL ALL KINDS OF ANTIQUITIES HERE. EVERY MONTH WE HAVE NEW ITEMS LISTED ON FIXED PRICES AND AUCTIONS. WE GURANTEE TO PROVIDE YOU WITH THE BEST OF THE BEST SERVICE WE CAN AND BUILD UNBRAKABLLE TRUST BETWEEN US AND YOU THE CLIENT. GIVE US A TRY TRUST US YOU WILL NEVER REGRAT IT AND WOULD KEEP COMING BACK TO SHOP WITH US.
THANK YOU FOR VISITING AND HAVE A NICE DAY :)
Oh, really professional.

Anyway, thogh I cannot speak to all of the "few other interested buyers" that allegedly received the same cut-price-hurry-get-it-now message, the reason why I "showed an interest" in this ugly battered piece of stone is that it looks remarkably like another item on the antiquities market that I wrote several times about. That was a Persepolis relief fragment from Montreal with a long and complicated collection history. Readers will probably not remember (though I do, somewhat painfully) that I considered that it was a fake, made for the market (giving my reasons), but I turned out to be wrong. So, I suppose I should be somewhat more circumspect about opining on this one, but to use the words of asn esteemed colleague let's just say its authenticity is not jumping right out at me, and I am keeping my 888.88$. I would give the same informed but still subjective opinion about all of the rest of this "saleroomm"s stock where it's areas that I'm familiar with (and with the rest I'd say caveat-very-much-emptors). Although some of the items are attractive as decorative pieces, it looks to me like a load of crap as dugup antiquities. First buy the books, second study and verify them, and third, buy the "art". And don't trust dealers that write all in capitals.

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