Posted 5 years ago
SpiritBear
(813 items)
~Le gasp!~ The horrors! A 2,000-year-old bottle, broken!
Not really. I did it purposely cuz it's a fake! A visual study of a sliver of glass shows that it is entirely modern glass, like that of a light-bulb-- it's not even a good reproduction!
The bottle was blown, tooled like that of one from the 1890s with a special tool, dipped in an acid solution, and had a colourant thrown over it to make it look like straw-coloured glass which is, itself, not often seen in the real-deal from this time/place.
I then repaired the bottle. The photo of it intact is a photo of it at the break. It is very hard to tell! Yes, it was always off-center at the collar/ring.
Oh, also, the sand seems to be glued on.
Hey Spirit, love your new collection of ancient bottles! About this one, did you buy it for the purpose of your experiment? It's really interesting what you've shared, I had no idea there were fakes of antique bottles. I mean, to put so much effort into producing a fake ancient bottle, it doesn't sound like it's worth it, unless they are mass produced somewhere in China. Where do you acquire your real antique bottles, if you don't mind sharing? Hope you're staying warm.
Hello, Anna; yes, I bought this one only for the purposes of my experiment and have bought two more bottles under that same purpose. One is fake, and I'll post at a later date, and the other has not yet arrived. The only affordable seller I've seen for ancient glass is linked below. But, 99% of what he sells is not 1st to 3rd century Roman, but 5th to 10th century Islamic or Byzantine.
Bottles are easy to blow and shape, and can be made from recycled glass. Some people will pay 20, 30, 40, 50, 100 dollars for a simple little bottle if they think it real. Very lucrative if it cost under 3 dollars to make.
Seller of mainly first-millennium C.E. Islamic bottles, though occasionally something odd slips in (I haven't tried his other supposed artifacts, but much metal junk-artifacts are also faked):
https://www.ebay.com/usr/faustina_art_gallery?_trksid=p2047675.l2559
Thanks Spirit, i checked it out. I wouldn't know the difference in metal artifacts, if some of them are fake, they looked convincing enough. I was also wondering where all this stuff is coming from in such volume, given what's going on in that part of the world... But anyway, do post your other fakes, I will be very educational.
Hello, Anna.
I have been unsuccessful in verifying this faustina art gallery person as having a physical location, and I have been unsuccessful in getting him to provide me any details on his business or the provenance of his items: but I am not very concerned about where he gets them, as world tours back in the day often brought home to England and America many artefacts.
My main concern is where the Thai sellers are getting there higher-quality artefacts, and, more over, where they're getting their very convincing reproductions.
Items like the one linked below don't belong on eBay as they're a lot better than your typical artifacts. My concern is they're either: very good fakes (as items just like this had been executed in perfect reproduction by a guy in the 1970s), possibly newer than expected (the one linked below may be of more Eastern manufacture), or, worse, stolen such as by ISIS and sold to the rest of the world via Asian markets where the governments don't care so much about other countries' lost artefacts. But, no one wants to verify anything for me.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/11-5-cm-Ancient-Patina-Roman-Glass-Aryballos-Oil-Vessel-100-AD-/283294441932?_trksid=p2047675.m43663.l44720&nordt=true&rt=nc&orig_cvip=true