Auctioning Native American Artifacts...
Reynaldo
6,054 Posts
Anyone have experience selling old Native American artifacts?The property that I live on has yielded some interesting things...eBay's policy is pretty straightforward, but apparently a lot of legal items get pulled anyway due to complaints from various groups and what not. This seller drops some knowledge in his item descriptions--what else should I know/consider?
Comments
Would this stuff be worth going beyond the stretch of eBay and trying to contact a museum?
Rey's backyard pron post?
I can't work out whether that seller's items are authentic or whether his disclaimer about having to state that his stock is reproduction is bogus.
You should know better.
JLR = COLD GETTIN' DUMB!!!!!!
KILLIN' IT MAYYNEEEE
HOW'S SOUTH AMERICAN TREATIN' YAH???????
MY FAVORITE STRUTTER RIGHT THERE! I DON'T UNDERSTAND THE QUESTION, BUT YOU STILL ROCK. YOU MEAN HOW'S SOUTHAMERICA TREATING ME? OR HOW ARE SOUTHAMERICANS TREATING ME? EITHER WAY I'M DOING FINE. LOL. THE PLANE FLIES THROUGH THE AIR.
Just wondering how you are doing, dude. In other words, how are you living, hommie? Are the Brazilian and Argentinian raers causing you to lay down on a bench??? LOL
Let's just say I know people. According to Vampisoul I had just scored and uruguayan OG that's worth 3 zeroes figures in euros:
GOOGLE IT MY PEOPLE.
FIRST TIME I HAD ONE OF THESE IN MY HANDS. LOL. I DIDN'T EVEN BELIEVE THAT IT EXISTED IN THE FORM OF AN OG UNTIL NOW. I THOUGHT DUDE GAVE VAMPISOUL THE MASTER TAPES OF AND UNRELEASED RECORD. NOW IT'S MY LITTLE PRECIOUS.
Ridiculous.
Unless he's turned up anything burial-related it shouldn't be an issue and, if that's the case, he shouldn't be messing with it at all.
Not in the case of a burial ground. I work for the Mashantucket Pequot Museum & Research Center. In the case of a burial ground, your claim to the property won't hold up. I was just told, by the museum photographer, about a burial ground being discovered on a new construction site in CT. The property owner was forced to sell the property.
Now, for general artifacts, I'm sure that any tribe's claim would be much weaker. I do work for the archivist. If the items are of particular interest, it is possible that our museum may be interested in purchasing them. I don't handle purchases (hell ... I just started working here a few weeks ago) but I can certainly forward any information to those who do make purchases.
Reynaldo, PM me if you'd like to possibly look into selling the items to a museum:
www.pequotmuseum.org
The focus is primarily on items related to the Mashantucket Pequots, but they do collect general native artifacts. Who know, they may actually be interested in what you have.
http://www.cr.nps.gov/nagpra/
I can't stress that enough.
Let me wake up and I'll type more. That pretty much says it all right there though.
How would you even know the difference?
My point is, unless you have some serious knowldedge about the tribe whose artifacts you're dealing with, how can you discern what's culturally or historically significant for them?
this is a national treasure...
Common sense? A little independent research?
The same way you can intuit to some degree the difference between everyday objects and objects that might have some greater significance to any culture?
I don't think anyone's going to have an issue with Rey selling off some arrowheads and pot shards.
If one's default assumption is that anything and everything is sacred until a panel of tribal elders and anthropologists has definitively said otherwise, then nobody could ever do anything with any artifacts that he or she found, since if they are sacred, even distrurbing them to the degree it would take to get an expert to verify what they were would probably be a transgression.
If Rey found an arrowhead in a creek in his backyard, you really think he should go through all that before selling it?
There's not even a guarantee that whoever is in his area now can speak with cultural authority on whatever he's found, since it may have originated with an entirely different group thousands of years ago.
Here comes the fuzz, indeed
peace
h
No 50% for Mr. Sucker
If there is no guarantee that an expert can decide an item's cultural importance, you would leave the decision in the hands of a novice?
Archaeologists have ways of determining an item's origin ... style of carving, materials, carbon date, etc.
Of course, he hasn't mentioned what he's found. Common sense can be used to a degree. If he found some arrowheads ... sure, its not that big of a deal. However, if there is any ambiguity as to the cultural importance/history of the items that he found, he should notify an archeaologist. I don't even know where he lives, but if he's in the Northeast, I can refer him to an archaeologist:
http://www.anth.uconn.edu/faculty/mcbride/
I referred to people "in his area" who might be able to "speak with cultural authority"--clearly that point wasn't meant to refer to archaeologists.
You looking hot these days, Faux...
(whistling...)
does your girl know about your alter ego?
(holla!)
Oh ... yooz talkin' about local idiots. Gotcha.
No, I meant tribal authorities... but it may well be that whoever is in the area now arrived there well after the group that discarded whatever Reynaldo's turned up. From what I've read, this has been an issue in recent years w/r/t early human remains.
Really, I think Reynaldo should give us some hint as to what it is he's found (and how he found it), but, yeah, I agree with the general idea that if it appears to be anything of even arguable significance, that he should get in touch with somebody more knowledgable than him.
I don't know why you're posting pictures of me, but leave Kidada out of this, ma!
Perhaps he wasn't expecting a bunch of do-gooders to post.
Yeah ... it can be a tricky issue. I'm no legal expert in the matter, but certainly in the case of a burial ground there would most likely be some sort of claim made for the property in question. Somehow I doubt he would post anything if he'd actually found a burial site so we're probably just talking about assorted artifacts. However, if you read through the act, there is some ambiguity about what a tribe may lay claim to. I'm not thinking land, here, but even an item of little cultural value may get snatched without compensation (perhaps).
So I'm guessing that he's walking that fine line of wanting to make a bit of money while not being completely shady.
Several years ago I found an arrowhead and a big piece of obsidian near a creek bed containing several mortar holes/grinding rocks.
According to my dad, prior to the purchase/sale of the property, the Bureau of Indian Affairs/Miwok tribe removed a number of artifacts from the property, so I'm guessing it is a known site.