I've been collecting fur trade artifacts for some 17 or 18 years now, both found and purchased, and what I'd like to do is to make a plea of sorts to my fellow metal detector friends. For years I've tried to get sellers of these artifacts to document their finds, particularly on ebay. Some will do it at request and others will not reply. But here is the rub. Virtually every fur trade artifact type has been reproduced somewhere for reenactors & can be made to look nearly as old as the originals by artificial means. As much as 90% of the tomahawks I see on ebay in a given week are fakes & many buyers are extremely wary. So what I am asking is for all you great metal detector people out there who are salvaging this history before it turns to dust to do is simply write down where it generally came from, when, and by who and then sign it. You can tie it to a shipping tag to the item or on a separate piece of paper. We dont' need a map that says X marks the spot.
Why should we do that? Because these items are not going to go to one buyer for all of eternity. Eventually that buyer (or their next of kin) will want to resell the item and the history will be lost, forgotton or not believed. Also your item then becomes immedicately worth more to the buying community because it has that documentation going with it. That piece of documentation becomes a part if that items history & goes wherever it goes. Collectors call that 'provenance'. You will have more bidders in an auction because they will be more confident they are not being taken. Rust can be duplicated & accelerated.
All this can only help the treasure hunting community while they are under fire from those in politics who want to make all treasure hunting illegal if we are seen more as protecting history rather than LOOTING it! Many ebay sellers do not even mention in their auctions that these items were dug, or when or where so printing the auction web page wouldn't help at all. It only takes a minute to write down these things but once that history of the item is lost --it is lost forever to us all!
Yes documentation can be faked too, but con-artists won't want to sign a paper indicating authenticity when they could be held legally accountable. Regardless, it is the history we should all want to salvage and your finds are now part of that history.
Anyway, hope I don't sound too preachy & I hope you will all consider this or at least discuss it.
Mark
Why should we do that? Because these items are not going to go to one buyer for all of eternity. Eventually that buyer (or their next of kin) will want to resell the item and the history will be lost, forgotton or not believed. Also your item then becomes immedicately worth more to the buying community because it has that documentation going with it. That piece of documentation becomes a part if that items history & goes wherever it goes. Collectors call that 'provenance'. You will have more bidders in an auction because they will be more confident they are not being taken. Rust can be duplicated & accelerated.
All this can only help the treasure hunting community while they are under fire from those in politics who want to make all treasure hunting illegal if we are seen more as protecting history rather than LOOTING it! Many ebay sellers do not even mention in their auctions that these items were dug, or when or where so printing the auction web page wouldn't help at all. It only takes a minute to write down these things but once that history of the item is lost --it is lost forever to us all!
Yes documentation can be faked too, but con-artists won't want to sign a paper indicating authenticity when they could be held legally accountable. Regardless, it is the history we should all want to salvage and your finds are now part of that history.
Anyway, hope I don't sound too preachy & I hope you will all consider this or at least discuss it.
Mark
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