Artifact mail order lists-

Cannonman17

Cannonman17

Bronze Member
Jul 16, 2006
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Wisconsin
Years ago I used to get a mail order artifact list - no pics, just a short description and price. The guy was from Huntville AL I believe. It was nice because he didn't sell just museum grade and pricey things, he had artifacts in all ranges starting out at two or three dollars each and up. Once in a great while I got a fake piece from him but 95% of the stuff was authentic. Does anybody know of any mail lists like this anymore? I really don't want the big company ones with just expensive pieces- would like to find another guy like the one above? If any of you have ANY mail lists could you post them? Thanks in advance!
 

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Hey CM,

Yea there used to be many, but with the advent of internet and all the big prices they are showing...coupled with the fact everyone and his brother has a webpage now, I dont know of any out there. Also, fakes are a BIG problem with bargain folks...not that you are assured of authenticity by paying a big price either....and EBAY.....stay away.....unless you like paying bucks for craft items.

There used to be a place in Arkansas called Lear's. They had the mail order list like you are talking about..no photos....supposed to have good stuff...by the time I found them, they were almost out of business thought....had little left to sell.

If I run across anyone will let you know. Arrowheads.com has some links and one is called consignment sales..they have some pretty good looking stuff on there. Might give them a try as well and then go to consignment sales. There are many links on that page so scroll down and check them out...most are over priced places...at least to me overpriced.....I cant make myself pay a 400 bucks for something I can pick up for free at home...lol.
 

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Hey - thanks for the tip on the web pages... too bad about those old mail order lists... well if you should ever hear of any keep me in mind. Thanks!
 

A bit off topic, but what would a decent stone axe cost to buy? I guess I am never going to find one, and would like to add one to the collection someday. Just curious, never saw one on ebay so have no idea.
Oroblanco
 

Oro, if you keep an eye on ebay for a week or two you will see some for sale, there's almost always one or two on there. Like is the case in most things, quality of the piece is the key so prices can range from about 50$ to the sky is the limit.
 

Thanks Cannonman, I should have specified a GROOVED axe head, had two of the non-grooved type years ago and might get lucky enough to find another of that type. I will keep an eye open.
Oroblanco
 

Oroblanco,

In dealing with anyting off ebay....in the artifact line.....let the buyer beware. I can tell you from experience that not some, but most things for sale there are faked. There are a couple of reputable dealers on ebay that have good reputations, but by in large most are selling either intentional fakes, or stuff they have purchased from garage and estate sales and dont really know one way or the other.

A good rule of thumb....if it says estate sale find, pass it by. If it looks too good to be true, it probably is. I had a couple of dealers on ebay tell me that 99% of the hardstone items on there are faked. Grooved axes are hard to come by down in my neck of the woods....stone is rare. Dr Webb told me once that if I found one axe every 20 years I would be doing well. Prices range like Cannonman said.....50.00 and up.........I have bought some off ebay before...a couple appear authentic.....a couple obvious fakes.....my experience was about 60/40 fake and I know what I am looking at......so anyone can be fooled....you just cant make a good judgement call from a photo.

Your best bet would be to make a relic sale somewhere. You might pay a little more, but you can closely examine what you want before you bite.

Atlantis
 

Thanks Atlantis & Cannonman, good advice. I kind of hate to have to buy one, but don't expect to find one either so the only way to have one for the collection is to resort to buying. Who knows though, might get lucky next hunt, you never know.
Oroblanco
 

Lucky that we can still find good dealers... I know artifacts as well as I do anything else and it used to be that 99% of the fakes could easily be seen. Many were the mexican "arrowheads" sold for .50 or three for a dollar out of some giant dish or tupperware container at a flear market... not so anymore. I can honestly say that I have studied and looked at or looked for and even made artifacts for most of my life now and I see one trend- specially on ebay. The fakes are getting better. I don't know how or why but people are finding really convincing ways to duplicate even patina. No longer do we have flat sided and file made notches but hand knapped points with added patina. It gets REALLY hard sometimes to spot the fake now. You almost have to be an expert on a specific area/material/time period. I don't know as much about the ground stone tools but I can only believe that they are following in the same path as the points.
As far as the auctions on ebay that say from an "estate sale"..... man.. head the other way. I feel bad for anybody who finds artifacts at one of these that are authentic because if they list them as that I usually (and many others) won't look twice. I did buy a coffee can of mostly broken points at an "estate sale" one time several years ago but they were all familiar types and made of local materials.. it was kind of cool.. even had a piece of galena in there. I never put any of them on ebay though.
Oro- just keep looking... I would love to have one to but if you buy one you will always (in most cases) have it in the back of your mind.. I wonder..... I have one axe in my collection that my Dad bought for me from a dealer.. as much as I would like to believe it's real I will never know..for sure.... I'll keep it til I die because it was from my Dad and for all practical purposes it may as well be real (and it really may be) but I don't think I will ever buy one. Besides, you're picking up black and white pottery and points in your FRONT YARD, who could ask for more!!! :)
 

Thanks for the tip Cannonman, perhaps I will get lucky some day. I would not want a fake, and there would be that element of doubt no matter what unless you find it yourself. The points and pottery shards in the yard were the one "high point" of the danged monsoon - it rained here every single day from June 24th to a week or so ago, and the rains seem to have un-covered the tidbits; I was not even looking for anything just keeping an eye on the ground (have to watch for snakes) while doing ordinary chores (feed the horses, cut some of the grass and weeds back etc) and would spot a few new pieces just lying on top, like they were washed off. I did do a little digging once (about twenty minutes before the skeeters made it very unpleasant) on the spot where several pieces were, about two feet square and only a few inches down but only found one shard so 'think' the pieces are washing down the hill from above. Only found two points in the "door yard" (area of about a half acre all together) the Rose Springs point was up by the fence. All three have been of stones that do not occur here, even though there is a good sized area with lots of signs of tool making (old fires, hammer stones, cores, shards etc) so I think these were 'discards'. I will post pix of the other two soon, if I can get it right.....(have not sat down and attributed either of the other two, the prettier one looks like the base is snapped off so might be impossible). Heck maybe I will try that tonight - a good pool of expertise here on T-net and it would take me HOURS to attribute, some people can ID many different types at a glance.

I too have tried my hand at flaking a point (using some of the pretty bicolored rock) but can NOT get it right, and the fluting is just hopeless for me. It did give me a lot of respect for those ancients, they really put a lot of effort and skill in making their tools and weapons, more so than (I think) many people give them credit. To me, these bits of stone are really works of art, or dang near that. Some are so striking, (like points made from clear quartz) I cannot imagine just firing it at a deer, knowing full well the arrow could be lost, the point broken by striking a rib or miss and hit a rock etc.

Oroblanco
 

I'm getting off topic but I can't help it- you mentioned the clear quartz points and I had to post a pic of this point I made this summer- clear with some grey/black streaks through it, almost 100% translucent- made from material that I traded for from a guy in one of the old Eastern block countries (don't remember who or where anymore..) similar to obsidian but not sure what to call it- anyways, here ya go.
 

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Hey,

That reminds me of a point I watched a fellow make here once...made it from clear glass....a clovis type point....after he finished it he said..."now watch this"...he took a permanent ink marker such as you use on clothes....colored it and it turned instantly from clear glass to translucent obsidian.....

You mentioned in an earlier post the ingenuity of fakers. Honestly it is getting almost impossible without some rocket science to tell on the good ones. This was never a problem before prices skyrocketed, but now that old, good points can bring several thousand dollars fakers abound and their skill is remarkable.

I am envious of true flintknappers....would love to learn the skill and perhaps one day I will take it up. I have watched and gone to several "knap-ins"...have the tools and a general knowledge of what the points are supposed to look like, but never got into it. Just be careful paying alot of money for "iffy" artifacts as even the true experts can be fooled today.

Hardstone items can also be faked...axes used to be pretty easy to spot, but with proper grinding, acid bathing and tender loving care one can make a right passable axe or celt. Its harder to fake the ones from down south as we have little granite or marble to work with and the patination is more difficult on our more porous stone.

Pottery is still rather difficult to fake with any degree of authenticity as most just looks new or coarse, but they are getting better. Its all in knowing your typology....I would not have a clue in spotting fake western type pottery vessel, but give me a Caddo piece and I could tell you with a 80-90% accuracy.

Happy Hunting,

Atlantis
 

DA%#* - (expletive deleted) WOW what a pretty point Cannonman! :o You could make these and sell them as jewelry, no kidding. That is just gorgeous! Wish I could knap and not have it shatter into six hundred pieces when it is three-fourths done (painfully honest, but I do NOT have the knack for it) and end up with something like that! Way-cool Cannonman, to use the slang, that really should be a jewelry piece.
Roy ~ Oroblanco

PS Mrs Oro wanted me to ask you if she were to send you some obsidian, would you make one for her? What would your terms be, if you would consider it?
 

;D ;D ;D

All this take about "fake" points brings me to an obvious question...

What is a "Fake" point?

Isn't CM's point a real point?

Does it make it fake because CM isn't an indian?

What about the 4 for a dollar points (such as CM mentioned earlier) that ARE made by indians?

While on vacation a while back we were driving through the Navajo reservation and stopped at a gas station for fuel. There was an old, drunk guy sitting outside making points for a quarter a piece... whiskey money I'm sure.

Aren't those real points?

;D ;D ;D
 

Wow, magic marker on clear glass- how entertaining. Glass is what I learned to flake first- mostly just pressure flaking, as I got older and found places to buy stone I started to learn that. Lots of cut fingers along the way. Anyways- Oro- obsidian is easy to flake into points- if you're willing to send me some I can flake a couple of points no problem. I know they "work" cuz I shot a deer with an arrowhead I made a few years ago. (I cheated on the wood part though and used an old arrow, just attatched my arrowhead)
 

Hello Digemall, Cannonman and everyone,

I think the problem isn't that a newly-made point is not a stone point, but that it is not "ancient" and used by ancient people (using ancient liberally here, stone points were used until fairly recently) so that is the whole idea of being 'genuine'. A point or tool actually used by the native people prior to Columbus or at least prior to being "civilized" with iron tools etc is more interesting to a collector. For jewelry however I think a newly made point is more suitable and can be just as gorgeous, like Cannonman's beauty posted above.

Cannonman that is quite an accomplishment! I don't find fault with re-using an old wood arrow shaft, so long as you didn't use an aluminum or graphite arrow shaft, you did stay with the correct materials. I can easily believe that these stone points would be deadly (when sharp they are as sharp or better than any steel arrowhead) and getting a deer with a bow is more challenging than with a rifle! I think that is just TOO COOL! 8) You ought to build a native-type bow too, of Osage or other native wood, maybe make a few more arrows too. You could have a money-making sideline there buddy! 8)

Oroblanco
 

Morning....

Ancient vs. Authentic vs. Fake.....

For a point to have any real "value" to me it needs to be both authentic (Indian made) and ancient...ie made many hundreds if not thousands of years ago.....there is also "reworked" to be thrown into the mix...reworked points to me carry little more value than faked ones. Reworked points were authentic, but through the passage of time and circumstance have been broken or damaged requiring cosmetic alteration.

You can have an authentic, Indian made point that is brand new. Being a member of a state recognized Cherokee tribe, I could make points and they would be authentic Indian made, but they would not be ancient, nor in my opinion worth collecting... :-[

Fakes are in another category all together....A faked point to me is one that is made to be sold as ancient for an ancient price while actually being newly manufactured. True fakers go to any lengths to make their wares appear old so as to garner the top price for the piece.

So I guess its a matter of nomenclature....ancient vs authentic......every point could be considered from some point of view "authentic".....but not every point is ancient.

Atlantis
 

Hey Atlantis, I'm Cherokee too... well, part Cherokee... my mother is a registered member.... me?  I just bow hunt.
:) :) :)

Where you from?

Let me rephrase that... Where are your people from? Mine are from north Alabama.
 

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