eBay increases trade in fakes, reduces trade in real antiquities

Jake Widman
Wednesday, 06 May 2009 03:38

Business IT - Technology

According to a UCLA archaeologist, eBay has created a worldwide market for fake artifacts -- and by so doing, has pulled the rug out from under the black market for real artifacts.

Writing in the May/June issue of Archaeology magazine, Charles Stanish describes how he and other archaeologists originally feared that the emergence of eBay would increase the market for valuable antiquities and so increase the prevalence of looting.

The actual outcome, he says, has been quite the opposite.

Before eBay, the market for antiquities was self-limiting. By the time all the middlemen were paid to get a looted item into the hands of a collector, the total cost was high enough to keep the practice a "wealthy person's vice."

The nightmare scenario for Stanish and his colleagues was that by cutting out the middlemen, sites like eBay would make the trade even more profitable for the original looter, resulting in a worldwide assault on ancient sites.

Instead, though, the economic incentive has switched to making fakes rather than finding originals.

And the fakes have become so good that they're even difficult for experts to identify. 

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