Newbie estate find Bannerstones, Discoidals, Birdstone collection

[stavok]

Hi from the newbie,
Excited today I bought these at an estate sale. The gentleman's father deceased 1960's and had a huge collection of arrowheads, rocks, pottery sherds, etc. collected 1920-1950. Everything looked good, old, musty and with period newspaper wrappings. I paid non-fake price for the set so I'm really interested in what experts have to say as I've never ran into these before. I particularly liked the double cup discoidal 5" diameter as I had not seen many internet images of strong double cup. Medium size disc is single sided, smallest double sided. All appear to be same stone (porphry?) note the underlying red color of chipped disc. Many of collections boxes had labels and dates (he traveled worldwide collecting) but alas no information about where these were collected. I don't have any reason to doubt them (other than my inexperience and the butterfly hole is not so tapered as I read it should be?) ---- I can chase them back down if anyone can point to serious issues. So what do you think????????

[SurfaceHunter]

Seeing they are made from the same material is kind of scary to me and all look to have the same age in patina. But don’t listen to me wait for someone else to chime in like Hoss he deals a lot in collections. Maybe he will see these and chime in for you. I hope they are real.

[Hoss]

I am sorry and this is probably heart breaking to hear. Especially if you paid a lot for these. These look modern to me. All made from the same material is not a good thing. Huge red flag. The Birdstone is all wrong. You have different discoidals and different ones were made in different places . Here is a good article. https://www.peachstatearchaeological...181-discoidals The same rock but supposedly because of style these would have been made 100's of miles apart. I would have walked away from that lot. The pendants do not look drilled right and the Bannerstone well look down the hole and see if it is smooth all the way through. Measure each end of hole all of my ancient bannerstones have a different diameter hole end to end. That is only one factor.

[stavok]

Posted pics of both sides of the hole

[clovisoid]

Hoss is absolutely correct.

[Okie1]

Yep all modern fakes/reproductions.

[stavok]

Hoss. Okie1, calling all experts. If I'm going to try to reverse the deal I need some good arguing points. Please detail hard evidence for fakery as it will be a tough conversation with seller. If all items were excavated from the same burial- why could they not share same stone type? Why is bird all wrong? Looks similar to http://www.j-and-dee-artifacts.com/# porphry birdstone. Thanks,

[stavok]

[stavok]

Anybody know an expert in Denver area who can give definitive appraisal? I know photos are tough....

[Hoss]

" stavok commented Today, 09:56 PM Hoss. Okie1, calling all experts. If I'm going to try to reverse the deal I need some good arguing points. Please detail hard evidence for fakery as it will be a tough conversation with seller. If all items were excavated from the same burial- why could they not share same stone type? Why is bird all wrong? Looks similar to http://www.j-and-dee-artifacts.com/# porphry birdstone. Thanks,"
So you know these to be from a burial now? Man this is not good. It is illegal to trade burial goods.

[Hoss]

Not only illegal to trade in grave good it is immoral too.

[stavok]

Hi Hoss, no, I don't know anything about a burial. I'm stumbling to understand what I have with no provenance. I'm surmising from what little I've read that these items tended to be part of burial and therefore might explain the common stone type. I doubt the seller is dishonest but understand that stuff can be accidentally included in a collection (i.e. the collector in the 1940's ran across them from a vendor next to a real excavation site in his travels). I appreciate you sharing your knowledge based on observation of physical details as I have no solid knowledge of provenance. I understand there are plenty of fakes but hope that your expertise and others can help sort out between them. Just because there is no solid provenance does not mean they are fake. I really appreciate if you can detail any issues with the items. I am happy to send direct high resolution photos as the website is lower resolution. Thanks for your help, Rgds,

[oldrocks2]

Not a stone expert but 60 yrs of looking at NA items the 2 things that put me in doubt on the pieces is.. Same material and if all found in the same place really kills them as the types being from totally different cultures just does it for me. The photo of the hole really is great and shows it not being a ancient method of drilling. Sorry. Hope you didn't pay a bunch.

[stavok]

Hi Oldrocks2. Thanks for the comments. Seems the same material is major stumbling block with different cultures. Any chance I could trouble you to expand on the "same stone, different cultures" aspect.? Are single sided discoids geographically separate from dual sided discoids as implied earlier. I'm genuinely interested in the idea of "same stone, differing cultures" aspect that has been brought up and hope someone will elaborate in detail.

[stavok]

Appreciate the comments on hole characterization. Please help me with images of correct holes so I can educate myself on what I'm looking for. Please explain the DETAILS of why my hole may not be real?

[SurfaceHunter]

The hole appears to perfect like it was done with a modern tool.

[Artifascination]

Look in the information center here on the site and it has all the answers to your questions in the sub forum on how to identify fakes and reproductions. It’s Very educational on all artifact types.

[stavok]

What is Repro Value? OK, should I decide to return and they want to haggle, what is repro bail out value for set? I don't want to accuse seller.............:-{ Seriously, I didn't spend a fortune (probably small claims court) any help appreciated. Thx

[oldrocks2]

Like I said I am not an expert on stone NA items. Anything I would say in a court would be rejected as I have no formal education on NA stone. The hole subject with me is both ends of the hole have a 90 deg. edge. The huge numbers of hours needed to drill a hole in stone with a reed and sand I can only imagine. The wobble and build up at the beginning of the hole leaves a cone entrance that I don't see in your stone.

[SurfaceHunter]

We aren’t allowed to talk price on the site in open forum. But I don’t know about reproduction pieces if we can or not. Maybe send Hoss a private message and see if he will talk to you in private on them as to what they might be worth. I don’t deal much in hard stone.

[stavok]

THANKS ALL. Appreciate the hole picture and any more feedback. I envisioned putting the pieces together as sort of an art sculpture tribute the the past. As a work of reproduction, I'd hate to have to duplicate the effort even for what I paid for the set as they seem mostly handmade and do not look to be made on a lathe. However, now assembling the piece seems foul if it is all fake so will need to visit seller.

[pkfrey]

If the seller wants to argue, use these words. Morphology and typology, plus lithics. Every piece you have is morphologically out of form based on what authentic examples look like. To go into detail would take several pages. You have to do some home work here. Look up butterfly bannerstones and compare the forms of authentic examples with this one. On the birdstone, the base is to " blocky " and the holes are drilled to far away from the edge. On the quadraconcave gorget, the holes look to be drilled to straight, and the sides are to equally the same. But the biggest factor here is what the others are saying. All made from the same material found in artifacts that are thousands of years apart in cultural age and design. They all, also, show significant signs of being polished or buffed on a mechanical wheel. If you showed extreme close up photos, it doesn't look like any of these ever had any ground contact. The surface coloration is way to consistent, and the same for each piece. You would expect to see areas of lighter shaded material on the surface when comparing each piece from one side vs. the other. And comparing each piece to each other. No weathering is a huge red flag!! Nothing looks like porphyry, they all look to be a diorite type stone. Anyway, agree with the rest, all repros. Sorry buddy, everyone's opinion here should be enough evidence to return these if you can.