Collecting Guide
Do not buyanything beforeacquiring some knowledge and making an eye. I made many mistakes when I started my collection and I still make some!To assemble a good collection you must know what you are looking for and buying.This requires:
- A good English practice: most books on Egyptian antiquities and/or amulets are in English, see the Generalities section.
- Some basic knowledge in mineralogy to identify stone amulets, in physics to measure specific gravity of stones and minerals, in zoology to characterize animal species and in botanics is very helpful.
- Regularly visiting:
a) Museums. There are amulets in every Egyptian archeological section
b) Exhibitions on ancient Egypt, which are frequent worldwide
c) Dedicated websites, for example:
https://collections.ucl.ac.uk/search/simple
https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection
https://www.mfa.org/collections
d) Websites of specialized dealers:
- For any specialized dealer who you do not know make a Google search as fakes + ‘the gallery name’. You will soon realize that many galleries,sometimes with hundreds of positive feedbacks, are crooks advertised worldwide. The most dangerous ones are mixing genuine artefacts with modern copies,mostly, but not restricted to, in semiprecious stones and faience weekly sold for example on Catawiki (see slide #8). This should avoid you many disappointements and plenty of difficulties to be refunded if that is the case. Note also that these crooks may operate under different names of galleries and/or from different locations.
- Visit the shops of serious dealers whenever possible (see slides #9 to 13). It is highly instructive to manipulate genuine amulets.
- Last, but not least be aware that pictures can be easily manipulated. I have been fooled twice bydeliberately altered pictures. I made claims and was fullyrefunded.
e)Register to https://groups.io/g/AncientArtifacts/
Certificates of Authenticity and Provenance
- Note thatANY certificate of authencity (COA)MUST provide one or several pictures of the artefact.
- Any serious seller offers a life-time warranty.
- Provenance is a big deal:
- Nowadays Museums do not buy any artefact without a strong provenance certificate. Most major Museums were asked to return to Egypt stolen or looted artefacts.
- Similarly, serious salerooms ask for a provenance certificate of any artefact.Therefore, keep a detailed record of all your buys, so that you may resell any artefact easily.
- Many fake amulets are sold with falsified provenance. This includes:undocumented statements (for example ‘previously in an old collectionof the 70’s’ without any invoice provided), fake old labels of known dealers/collectors and/or fake old style wooden stands. See https://www.collector-antiquities.com/real-or-fake/fake-egyptian/fake-faience-amulets/Â