Theres are literally thousands of sellers on eBay all promoting their products as diverse as Roman hair pins to Iron Age oil lamps. With any online business there are certain steps which you should take to inform yourself before you buy antiquities so that your hard earned dollars are well spent

The first step is to find a point of collecting interest for yourself. For many ebayers new to bidding and buying they tend to collect everything and then refine their collections down the line. If you fit the latter group and collect everything it is fairly impossible (money willing) to purchase books on every subject area without incurring great expense and the need for an intermediate to assist you in your purchases is highly recommended.

We strongly recommend that all buyers of antiquities on the net join appropriate yahoo groups such as Ancient Artifacts BEFORE you buy items for sale so that you get a better understanding of the marketplace, what prices to pay, who is selling known fakes, which items have been misattributed and are also able to locate other items in different forums for sale.There are many dealers on these lists with decades of experience in identifying items correctly and are able to offer an opinion on whether they are authentic - even from a picture! There are specialists who can tell a Samaritan Oil Lamp from a Roman Oil Lamp and also what time period these pieces can be attributed to. Misattribution of items for sale many times is little more than a simple mistake but repeated misattribution of items is highly suspect behaviour and you should tread carefully.

Dont be afraid to post to the various Yahoo groups your questions no matter how insignificant you think they are!...there are a LOT of people willing to help you and a number of prominant dealers also belong to these lists and are more than happy to help you. As with any online groups the common protocol is to be polite at all times. Active participation on these lists by people you buy from certainly may help alleviate any concerns you may have about your items. Simply seeing your current favourite seller posting his or her new wares for sale is not active participation and many of the yahoo lists are stopping this practice of spam business solicitation

There are many sellers on ebay and many reputable people to buy from. If you cannot afford to buy the books, or dont have the time to educate yourself via the yahoo groups nor find the time to visit a good library you should ask for a COA - A Certificate of Authenticity for the goods you buy. Dont be surprised if your buying a 1$ coin and ask for a COA that you will get charged for the service. Each COA is individually prepared and the prices range from 1$ (per item) to 20$ (per item) depending on the seller. Most of your high end antiquities come with a COA as a matter of course and you pay no extra for it.

Whats a COA worth? Most people find it very disconcerting when told that the biggest sellers of fakes on ebay all issue COA's. Basically they are rogue traders issuing worthless pieces of paper for your piece of mind. When you try to return the items they may not be in business anymore, dont acknowledge your returned item or even deny they sold it to you! If you are going to send something back make sure you send it registered mail or insured mail so that it can be tracked to the seller and be polite in your emails with the seller!.

Museum Authentication. The common fallacy is that all staff in museums know about all ancient artifacts. This is simply NOT TRUE. A specialist in Ancient techniques of Nordic boat building will generally have very little idea what is the difference between a Roman and a Greek Oil Lamp. Unless the Museum staff are recognised experts in the field you are inquiring your only going to get a haphazard guess at the best of times and this is dangerous for the collector and the antiquities trade in general.

Cameron Day
eBay ID: cerberuscoins-com