Dear readers I should say this has been a week of social media and e-commerce failures. Having all been invited by the Museum of the Bible to join the @AskACurator day on Wednesday on Twitter, I thought to send a number of questions about provenance and guess what? Not a single one was answered. Others went unanswered too, but I have been asking since 2014, after all I felt I had to be treated with some respect. Even Mr Ask A Curator had a say…
Anyway, I brought my frustration to eBay and it went even worse. Two papyrus fragments appeared on sale from a German account, evangelist75, an interesting chap who according to his feedback report has sold quite a number of antiquities of all sorts, including other “interesting old Coptic papyrus sheets”, as he calls and sometimes misspells them. For once I give mine and my colleagues’ expertise: those just sold, one for £ 48.93 and the other for £ 77.75, are fakes (although the papyrus sheets might be genuine or faked better than the texts: hard to say). Actually they are hilarious fakes considering the Facebook comments when my friend Alin Suciu posted the links.
So the buyers have been cheated, which I really enjoy since these papyri would have never been acquired by responsible collectors. Mr evangelist75 has in fact told me via the eBay chat: “I have purchased from an antique dealer in Germany about 20 years ago and comes from nord Egyptian area. ” Maybe he had been cheated too? Who knows…
In the light of previous experiences, I did not bother this time to fill the eBay form for irregularities, since all those I sent have remained unanswered so far. I went straight to Twitter and talked to eBay through their @AskeBay account. This is what I got back (click on the link here below and you’ll see all the conversation):
Isn’t it amazing? Those fancy people in the Silicon Valley know how get by in this world. They earn tons of money and pretend us all to make their job of monitoring FOR FREE!!! If I were not the lady I am, I would pass at this point to Italian body language. But never mind, after all it is Sunday and frustration week will be ended soon.
Roberta Mazza 