Roman spearhead, seeking second opinion on legitimacy.

[Kilian O]

Hey,

I was thinking about getting a spearhead to put on my desk as decoration. My interests lay with roman timeframe so I did some browsing and visited many antiquity sellers that are reputable. I came across this one. I asked if there was a guarentee of authenticity and I got this response.

"With antiquities of a lower value (up to ~£5k) it is very challenging to provide the type of guarantee you may be looking for. Carbon dating of organic items of higher value items is possible, but given this costs several hundred pounds per item it is not used for everything.
For lower value items we authenticate based on provenance (ownership history), and examination of the item’s design and materials.
Faking an antiquity is a very challenging process, and given that there is more risk with particularly valuable items."

I was just mainly worried about fakes and this was the response I got. He also mentioned that if you are looking for something 100% Roman then coins, glass, and oil lamps are easiest to verify. But i'm mainly looking for a spearhead or anything military from that period.

The head itself is 26cmx4cm and made out of iron and said to be out of a private collection. I did ask for more pictures of the hole and the bottom so hopefully i'll be getting them soon.

Do you guys see anything wrong or something I should watch out for? Oh yeah it was also cleaned/restored by the seller.

Thanks.

[SC]

This raises a few issues for me.

- Does a dealer guarantee than an item is at least very old, i.e. pre-modern, and not a modern fake/fantasy item/etc? 

- Does a dealer guarantee that they will take back an item and return the money if it is ever proven to be a modern fake or grossly mis-described.

To me, the answer to those two questions should be yes.

That said, I can understand a dealer who says that a spearhead is "ancient" but is not willing to guarantee it is Roman vs. Celtic vs. Germanic vs. Byzantine vs. Medieval, etc. 

I have three iron spearheads - two are fairly distinctive forms and so can be dated - the third is "likely Roman, definitely 3rd century BC to 14th century AD"....  You get the point.


From the image it is hard to comment about this one. 

Roman era spearheads are not hard to find so take your time.

SC