Christie's Auction and Collecting Histories

Three flaky flasks for eighteen thou...

I was out during the first part of today's Christie's antiquities auction, so managed to miss the early lots online. When I joined, bidding was slow on many lots which went for prices around the low estimate... until they got to the glass. The prices there were really ridiculous. OK, these were complete vessels which had avoided chipping when dug up, but how difficult is it to find glass vessels like that? Take an ancient town in the sandy desert (perhaps in a glass-producing region like Syria) and just dig around outside the walls... like at Dura Europs here. It's like shooting fish in a barrel. There's serious money to be made (and lost) here.

Dura Europos to the right the city, to the left the cemeteries. All dug up now.

Those collecting histories are really important.