It has been nearly a year since I posted my ebay guides on how to avoid the purchase of fake Native American artifacts. In that year, a lot of concerned and dedicated ebay collectors have spent countless hours every day making it difficult for the fakers to do business in the pre1600 artifact category. A few months ago, ebay agreed to participate by removing all auctions where fakes were reported by members. As a result, almost all the hard corps fakers have moved on to sub or alternate categories where they continue to sell their junk. If you still have your list of ebay names of the fake sellers and search for their auctions, you will find them still active and selling in all kinds of off categories where their still making handsome profits off the gullible. I can鈥檛 overstate the need for all ebayers wanting to collect only authentic pieces to shop for them in pre1600 exclusively. When the fakers were forced to move, they didn鈥檛 change their sales techniques, they are still trying to peddle them as authentic, even in the reproduction category. Apparently enough foolish bidders followed them and continue to throw their money away chasing what they hope might be authentic when they are in fact cleverly disguised fakes. The faker will state that he is only listing elsewhere because their auctions in pre1600 were continually being pulled because ebay considered them to be burial or cave items. Nothing could be farther from the truth. They were removed because the seller was repeatedly reported for selling fakes.
In this same year, ebay has made a lot of changes to auction page formatting and member information availability. For instance, all the advanced searches I referred to in my first guides can no longer be performed. If you click on the advanced search and attempt to review what a person has bid on for the past 30 days, you will only get the auctions that they won. You will not see all the bids placed on behalf of the seller by a shiller where the objective was not to win the bid. Consequently, shilling is probably at its peak right now because its much harder to prove its happening. I can easily pick out any number of supposedly honest sellers and over a few days demonstrate that they are shilling by observing repeat bidder patterns. And you thought that prices were rising so quickly because the hobby is growing fast. That鈥檚 somewhat true, but its also fact that the prices are soaring because shilling is so easy to get away with now. Just remember to do your homework on every seller you expect to bid with and always before placing a bid. Check their feedback closely even reading comments made by the buyers. Look at where and what their buying. Check on what their bidding on themselves. Using the ask seller a question feature, ask all pertinent questions about their guarantees and refund policies. Always click on their ID history icon to see if they routinely change names (red flag). Review my first 4 guides for more precautions to take and things to look for.
Remember my repeated cautions about bidding on auctions where the seller privatizes the bidder鈥檚 identity? I encourage everyone to continue not bidding on auctions with the hidden bidder feature. Ebay has made changes here too. Now once any arrowhead bid goes over $200, the bidder information reverts to private. You can still differentiate between the seller selected private aution vs. the ebay imposed ones by just remembering they will all go private after $200 has been surpassed. If you see a point selling for $10 and the bidder info is private, you know its because the seller elected the option. And for all the same reasons spelled out in my original guides, the collector should avoid bidding on them. Is it possible to bid on a private bidder auction without fear of being shilled? Yes, but the likely hood of there being shill bidding is far greater than if you just bid where you know who your competition is. If you want a point, set a price in your mind and stick to what you would be willing to pay, save the auction to your watch list until the last few minutes of the sale and if its within the limit you set for yourself, bid your maximum just seconds before the sale ends. That way your at least safe from being counter bid by the shiller. If the bid isn鈥檛 high enough on the last day, most shillers do however place a bid around 2 hours before the sale ends, and often its just under the price the seller wants to actually turn it loose for. If your one and only bid is still under the sellers minimum, at least you beat the seller/shiller team at their own game. They still have the point yet are stuck having to pay ebay fees for the faked sale. They鈥檒l stop the games if enough of their offerings don鈥檛 sell and ebay winds up making more than they do. Where folks get stuck big time is bidding early-on in the auction and trying to hold the high bid regardless of price then dropping an even larger bid at auction end. I can鈥檛 tell you how many auctions I鈥檓 seeing where arrowheads worth around $20 are selling for from $35 to $100 . I guess if your burdened with to much cash and determined to spend it you have found a place to do so, just don鈥榯 expect to recoup those ill spent funds when it comes time for you to sell what you overpaid for.
In my earlier guides I mentioned that buyers would stand a better chance of getting quality authentic artifacts if they bought from members of the AACA. I鈥檓 now seeing a whole batch of newer sellers that rushed out and joined the AACA. Its readily apparent that a high percentage of these sellers joined the AACA to boost the ending prices of their sales but have done little in educating themselves on the artifacts their peddling. The knowledgeable collector can spot them easily and avoids dealing with them or if they do, they place appropriately low bids because they know the risk of getting a fake or altered artifact from a unknowledgeable seller is high regardless of their fraternal affiliations. The AACA is the best thing going for everyone interested in collecting authentic arrowheads. The organization does a lot of good for us all and much of it isn鈥檛 visible to the general public. Unfortunately there will always be the greedy halfwits out there that will attempt to use the AACA for their own purposes and we have to remain aware of that and know how to identify and avoid them.
I don鈥檛 want to write another book on these subjects and am making every effort to keep it brief, but thought it important to pass on what I鈥檝e been observing on ebay lately. Of course I can鈥檛 end this writing without at least touching on the subject of artifact authentication (my favorite topic). The 100 or so (and growing daily) artifact authenticators out there must be having a field day. I can see it now, vacations on yachts in the Bahamas or sipping spirits out of coconut shells on the beaches in Hawaii. Business is so brisk some are again raising their fees. Some more readily issue authentication papers on any manner of antiquity they want you to think they might know something about. You want a paper on a pot dug up in the Samoan islands from an authenticator that鈥檚 never seen a Samoan artifact and knows nothing about that culture? You will probably be able to get one without much searching. How old is the pot? Who buried it and when? Doesn鈥檛 make any difference, you can still get an authentication paper. If you do a little research on Samoa, you can come up with a plausible story about the pots linage. Just pass that on to the authenticator and low and behold it appears as fact on the papers issued. Now you can even buy a batch of 10 authentication papers right off ebay. Just pay the authenticators asking price, usually $5 to $10 each, send your 10 points to him and he papers them. What a deal! Never mind the material isn鈥檛 properly identified, the point type is likely wrong or even that the point might just be as fake now as it was before you sent it for authentication. Its amazing how quickly the points papered by these wholesale authenticators show back up on ebay proving that the seller wasn鈥檛 interested in collecting, just reselling for profit. If you still have plenty of cash to toss, I have an 18鈥?ceremonial lance tip autographed by the maker and dated by him to when made (8,000 BC) and I鈥檒l gladly furnish an authentication paper, all for less than the purchase price of your next home.
Almost forgot鈥?another change ebay has made is randomly restricting contact between members using the 鈥渃ontact member鈥?feature on the feedback page. I have received many requests for the faker list, point identification, chert identification and even a few folks wanting me to tell them if their artifacts are authentic. I am not an authenticator by choice, but if I receive pics of obvious fakes (made in Mexico or India or a 3鈥?long plastic blade), I have no problem with telling them their fake. It may take up to a week before I can slip a reply message to you with the contact member feature but I will continue trying until successful on each and every request I receive. Conversely, if you have a request of me and ebay wont complete the mailing, wait a day or two and try again. Wish I could just post my email addy, but I already get enough spoof mail. I retain the email addresses of everyone I鈥檝e delt with related to trading artifacts, so you will be blind copied on notices from me about updates to the guide. I hope some of you have kept my email addy and feel comfortable in contacting me with questions or concerns. If you aren鈥檛 and want to be removed from my address book just let me know.
Important Footnote: Several people have emailed that they have bid on pieces only because they saw my bid on them and it gave them confidence that they were authentic. Thats fine, the competition is great and I like competing for them as much as the next guy. Be aware though that I often bid on suspect points offered by new or unknown sellers just to get them in hand to determine if the seller is on the up and up. Or to test the sellers auctions for shilling. If you wind up with a fake after bidding on a piece I bid on too, don't complain to me. Do your homework on the seller, and if you still can't make up your mind, contact me. I'll tell you if I'm biding because I want it or because I'm suspicious. If on the other hand you see me bidding with an established seller with an excellent reputation, you know I'm bidding to win. And if I REALLY want it, you wont see my bid until 7 seconds before the auction ends. Wees Ani Woswewiti
Orignal From: Where Have All The Fake Arrowhead Sellers Gone???
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