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A retired surveyor in Tucson showed me how to spot a fake artifact at a swap meet
I was at a swap meet in Tucson last month and picked up what I thought was a real stone tool for $15. An older guy at the next table asked to see it, flipped it over, and said "look at these scratch marks, that's a Dremel, not a knapper." He walked me through the flake patterns for 10 minutes and pointed out how the edges were too even to be hand knapped. He wouldn't take any money for the lesson, just told me to check the patina on both sides before buying. Anyone else run into someone like that who just hands out knowledge for free at these things?
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the_pat10d ago
That bit about the edges being "too even" is the part people miss. Real knapped stone has spots where the guy hit it wrong and left a thicker ridge, or the flakes run uneven because the rock had a flaw in it. Modern fakes are made by people trying to make every flake look perfect, and perfect is the tell. I learned that from a guy at a flea market in Yuma who sold me a " museum quality" point that turned out to be a pressure flaked repro. He told me straight up after I paid, which was decent of him.
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