Hello I am a history buff, but to read, I don't know how to recognize fake historical objects. A site appeared on ebay that sells antiques from all eras. There are terms like "very rare",
"splendid", the story that the collection was of the dead father etc ... that make me doubt and also the variety of objects seems suspicious to me. Can anyone tell me if they sell real or fake items?https://ebay.it/usr/yorkantiquities
Breathless hyperbole and almost manic positive spin in his selling technique but what he offers is essentially overpriced junk!! Broken bits and pieces, all genuine, with a "story" (but is it true?)
I agree . Looks like mostly scattered uninteresting fragmentary pieces found by metal detecting talked up to great heights and some silly asking prices! . Very little of any real interest and one has no idea if the provenance stories are true or not.
Kelly.
Trusting in online descriptions & attributions is a sure recipe for disappointment. York Antiquities at least offers up a lot of genuine finds & not phony junk crafted the other day in their cousin's workshop. Superlatives in these description are mere window dressing - all fluff and no substance. "Very rare" "extremely rare" and "one of a kind" are likewise all meaningless statements included to ensnare the consumer. Caveat emptor.
Gaius
yorkantiquities
=
York Antiquities
Paul Hardcastle
134 Beckfield Lane,
Acomb
York
North Yorkshire
Y0265QT
United Kingdom
Younger brother of Alan Hardcastle
https://ancientartifakes.net/smf/index.php/topic,1212.msg5145.html#msg5145
https://ancientartifakes.net/smf/index.php/topic,1185.msg4950.html#msg4950
Both have been claiming for a very long time to be selling their father's collection amongst other things, notable badly made fakes. Though Alan has been the major culprit in this. Need to ask if fraud runs in families
Paul Barford discusses him also:
http://paul-barford.blogspot.com/search?q=hardcastle
Jerry.
Paul is Alan's brother???!!! How do you like them apples!!!!!!!
I didn't have the energy to go through all the fragmentary bits and pieces he is selling but there are several pieces called "Viking" which are certainly not Viking. Most of the fragments I saw were genuine but of little interest.
hello thanks for the answers, when you mentioned Alan I thought: It's me? 🤣 However I found that they sell "Roman reinforced concrete". Absurd
I also saw that he found an Anglo-Saxon "treasure" in his garden ... what a coincidence
Just an observation from an interested (very far from expert) amateur. The item shown is not described as "reinforced" concrete and the Romans were otherwise famous for their expertise in the use of concrete (viz the roof of the Pantheon, to name but one example).
I know very well that the Romans were great builders and are considered the inventors of concrete (I'm Italian). The problem with this object is that if you read it carefully it is described as "having a part of iron incorporated", so I made the joke that "Roman reinforced concrete" was put up for sale. From what you can see and the dubious provenance it could also be a remnant of an old building or taken from a construction site
Alan is correct in expressing skepticism on the provenance. Without further analysis you have no way of knowing whether the concrete is from the Forum Romanum or the old McDonalds they're tearing down somewhere in the city.
Gaius
I agree with much that is stated here, though I confess to personally knowing the original finder of this "opa signinum" who is a detectorist and ancient history enthusiast of long-standing and considerable experience. A great many of his finds have (like this) been non-metallic and identifiable based on the context in which they were found. I note also comment to the effect that yorkantiquities (whom I do not know and have no connection with) mainly purveys genuine artefacts (albeit perhaps pricey in comparison to their intrinsic value). However, I do understand that when an item is subtracted from its context, provenance becomes a matter of trust, in which case "caveat emptor" as the Romans would have said.
Not sure why anyone would want to spend 32,94 GBP for an non-descript chunk of concrete. Sticking a pottery sherd in your pocket as a souvenir of some Roman era site is potentially evocative to the individual. Really anything associated with past people and places has certain intrinsic meaning.
Sorry but if you know the person who finds these items, how can you not know Yorkantiquities which is this person's shop where he sells these items?
In England at least, amateur detectorists are permitted to search on land not otherwise scheduled as ancient monuments, so long as the landowner's permission is sought and granted. Inevitably, over the course of many years, such activity will yield a haul of artefacts which are of such little intrinsic value or historical significance that they need not be reported to the relevant authorities (there are laws governing this). In the case of my friend, his collection had reached a point where he decided he would dispose of some of the lesser items via a dealer...yorkantiquities. So finder and retailer are not one and the same, nor is my friend the sole source of yorkantiquities' stock.
Artifacts need not be imbued with loads of intrinsic value to be meaningful. Even mundane objects like a disposable chunk of concrete are capable of evoking thoughts and imagery of vanished people and places. These objects are of value not because of their historical importance, but because they represent a hearkening to some indeterminable point of contact with things now lost – a yearning for situations and societies that ONCE WERE but are apparently NO MORE. Mental journeys to people, places and events that, in their totality, remain forever outside our grasp. This is because regardless of what we accrue, our insights into past people and places remain entirely relative, like the proverbial blind men describing an elephant. One touches the side, and declares it like a wall. Another touches the trunk, and declares it like a snake. A third grabs the tail, and declares it like a rope. These assessments are accurate, based upon individual perception and experience. But the elephant is none of these things. The three wise men remain eternally insensible to the animal's true nature. Our need to understand the past should be tempered by the realization that, as a species, maybe we were never designed to see the elephant. But our need to know are cultural and biological imperatives.
Gaius
I suppose when I used the term "intrinsic value" I had in mind the grubby meaning of "made of precious metal" (since, in large measure, this determines whether one must report the find to the PAS). Historical significance does also implicitly carry the sense of intrinsic value, as you suggest, since the most quotidien of items, discovered in a particular context, may yield highly informative evidence of past lives and cultures. From that point of view, I can sympathise with those professional archaeologists who grind their teeth at the activity of amateur "treasure hunters", even the honest ones, since they lift items out of their setting and thereby denude an historic location. Weighed heavily in the balance against that view is the fact that perhaps the majority of these finds are extracted from the plough soil where they have been subjected to centuries of disturbance and destruction. In that sense, metal detecting arguably salvages precious artefacts from the ravages of ever more intensive farming practices. But yes, to hold a piece of our past in one's hand and let the mind consider the inherent meaning of it from our far-removed standpoint of the 21st century is a stimulating and mind-expanding experience, one which the fraudsters are working to devalue and undermine.