Have just been to my local antique arcade -there in one display were a number of Roman Rings, an Elizabethan clothes fastener,Roman knife, a 'celtic woad grinder'! They were advertised as 2,000 years old etc, priced in the hundreds.
Where do these things come from that they can be put on sale like this? Are they genuine? (I know no one can answer that without seeing them but is it likely?)
Where do these things come from that they can be put on sale like this? Are they genuine? (I know no one can answer that without seeing them but is it likely?)
No response, just the sound of tumbleweed drifting by!
so, if the nation's heritage is seen as being sold off -why can't it be claimed by the state?
Is there such a thing as a woad grinder or crusher? I've grown woad and a simple pestle and mortar will pulverise it, this was a green crescent.
It just makes me mad to see at least 6 so named Roman Rings on sale and for a few hundreds -if I wasn't an oap I would buy a few and present them to the local museum (but Gordon is eroding my spare cash perhaps I am not altruistic enough!)
if the nation's heritage is seen as being sold off -why can't it be claimed by the state?
It already is in Scotland but(apart from items classed as Treasure) England and Wales have an alternative system based upon political cowardice in which the vast majority are there for the taking. Like rare birds eggs and orchids, but legal.
Not that those items are all necessarily British. Unprovenanced items come from wherever the finder or dealer say - and invariable they are described as from an old collection, not from a Scheduled monument, gathered with the landowner's permission and most definitely not from Eastern Europe where not only digging them up is illegal but exporting is as well.
What you saw is probably the tip of a very large iceberg - see EBay. It's a magical place where things can be instantly transmuted and re-provenanced by the stroke of a keypad. And of course, since the British have more liberal laws than anyone else in the world they mostly get turned into "British" artefacts.
Tell Gordon you resent that as well as everything else!
