I spotted a discussion on a collectors' forum of one dealer, based in the UK who allegedly buys: "uncleaned metal detector finds from across Eastern European equivalent of eBay" and sells them with a "UK coin fair" provenance:
what I found really objectionable was he had crates of near identical bronze bracelets, obviously all same culture, period and source, but would list them across Catawiki auctions as Viking, Roman and Prehistoric, sometimes in same jewellery sale, to see what description brought the best price!That is, "gets the best price" from people naively believing you can trust an antiquities dealer. From what I know, that is a very risky step to take, with anything.
https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/1696214/treasure-vanishes-council-care-storerooms-metal-detecting-police-investigation
ReplyDeleteI'd have thought you'd be all over this episode, gleefully spouting your delight at detectorists 'losing' 'their' finds.
Still, I suppose trying to defend your fellow angelic 'professions' after an "inside job" is a bitter pill to swallow. So best left alone huh!
Thanks for the tipoff, it is difficult for me to keep up with all the treasure hunting news from UK papers such as Express, Daily Mail and Sun. I doubt it really is just "detectorists" losing finds from a council store. As to whether it's an "inside job" involving archaeologists, time will tell.
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