For about 150 years, or as long as Native American artifacts have had monetary
value, there have been those who make or alter artifacts to sell as if they
were originally ancient. I have previously read what you are about to read
numerous times since I began collecting artifacts over 60 years ago. Assuming
there are new members of our society who are as naïve as I once was,
the following message cannot be printed too many times.
After close to 20 years of hunting for artifacts I decided I’d purchase
a few artifacts to enhance my collection. The large and perfect points that
I continually saw in the publications I had been reading didn’t seem
to be available to me in the streams and campsites I’d been searching.
It was in 1985 that I stopped by an auction house in Marshalltown, Iowa
that was selling a large collection of artifacts. My wife, Heather, and I
were heading home for the weekend to Clio, Iowa to visit relatives the day
prior to the auction. Marshalltown wasn’t out of the way so we stopped
by the auction house to see what was for sale. No one was present at the
auction house that could tell me anything about the collection being sold,
but I left “silent” bids on approximately 12 to 15 artifacts.
All of the pieces were large and perfect points including: Agate Basin, Thebes,
Graham Cave, Dovetail, Hardin, Osceola, Snyders, etc. I didn’t expect
any of my bids to be successful as my largest bid was $100 on a perfect 5 ¾ inch
Hemphill/Osceola point. As I recall, all of my remaining bids were $30 to
$75. To my surprise I was notified the following week that 11 of my bids
were successful! At that point I came to the realization that either the
auction was poorly attended or, more likely, I was the new owner of a handful
of fraudulent artifacts. I should have known better.
I paid a reputable professional authenticator to assess three of the artifacts
(Fig. 1) that I had purchased. All were deemed recently made and not authentically
old as I had half-heartedly hoped. According to the authenticator, a couple
of the pieces had been baked in a substance such as Old English Furniture
Polish to give them a fake patina and one didn’t have any patina at
all. All of them were probably manufactured within the last 50 years. I could
only assume that all the rest of my newly acquired points were fraudulent
although I’ve never spent the money to verify their authenticity. They,
like the three verified “bad” ones, sure look good! We didn’t
have a lot of money to waste on buying artifacts and I had just blown several
hundred bucks. I chalked it up to my being naïve, but according to my
wife, stupid was a more appropriate word. I put them in a box and slid them
under my gun cabinet where they still are today. I should throw them in
the landfill, but I show them to almost nobody and they are a constant reminder
of my mistake (Fig. 2). I went on hiking streams and campsites finding the
real thing even though the vast majority
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Figure 1. Before the hammer. Unreal (fake) Artifacts.
Left: Graham Cave has been heat treated; real Graham Cave points are
typically not heat treated plus there is a recently applied foreign
substance on its surface. Center: 5 ¾ inch Osceola/Hemphill
point was baked in Old English furniture polish to give a fake patina.
Right: Huge classic Snyders point has no patina at all which would
not happen after being 3,000 years in the ground. Author paid a total
of $210 for these points. If genuine their value would be at least
10X that figure. Today’s value = almost nothing!
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weren’t the points of my dreams that I continued to see in many publications.
Since that initial blunder, I’ve seldom purchased any artifacts. The
few times I did, I was wiser (See: A Tama County Iowa Collection Rediscovered,
CSAJ, July 2020).
My Dad’s cousin, Arlo Williams, decided to auction off his final
collection in Kansas City in 1994 when he was 82 years old. He had previously
auctioned off two earlier collections! But this, his final auction, would
include many of his best personal finds. I drove the nearly 400 miles to
attend the auction and sat beside Arlo in a folding chair throughout. When
something came up that I was interested in I would ask Arlo, “Tell
me about this one,” and he would. I was able to acquire, according
to Arlo, one of his best ever notched points and the best ever celt he ever
found (Figs. 3, 5). I was able to purchase several of Arlo’s personally
found artifacts that day (Fig. 6) and I wish I had purchased more. The perfect
Dalton point and slant-groove axe that I dearly wanted went way too high
for my meager budget. At that time, I was raising three small children and
thought I couldn’t part with the money, but I know now I should have
taken out a loan.
When purchasing artifacts, one needs to ...
Read the complete "After the Hammer" column
in the Central States Archaeological Societies 2023
April Journal which can be purchased on-line after March 2024
