[Ansteorra] For those of you with $185, 000 just lying around...

Tue May 4 12:33:18 PDT 2010

Salut cozyns,

Master Robin, you had me until you said:

" This is one reason why the SCA has such a horrible reputation with professional historians and antiquarians."

Nah. Professional historians (discounting the ones who are actually part of the SCA like Mistress Brynhildr, Sir Michael Delacy, and Duke Finvarr) typically dislike the SCA because they consider what we do silly. They dislike what we do with the information (playing dress-up) or they resent our misuse of terms like "re-creation" and "reenactment," neither of which have anything to do with the SCA, generally. Professional antiquarians, on the other hand, dislike that many of us are looking for bargains or--even worse--planning to actually USE their wares. Helmut Nichol, who used to be (may still be for all I know) in charge of the Medieval holdings at the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art, specifically told me that he doesn't care for the SCA and such Medieval-play groups because, so many of us read two books on a topic and think that makes us experts. So, if that's what Master Robin meant, I agree. If he meant we have a reputation as know-it-alls--yeah. We aren't going experts. None of us can say, definitively, that the pictured items are authentic. I know some damned-knowledgeable Laurels, but a Laurel isn't a Ph.D. 

Master Robin, I believe, is correct in his eviddentiary analysis and debunking of the stolen property and fraud theories. Having seen many stolen items and more than a few frauds turn up on e-Bay, though, I can see why some might ask those questions. 

I agree, in this case, that accusing the purveyor of a crime would be wrong-headed, but let's not over-state the case. Asking questions and making hypothetical statements like, "There is always the possibility..." do not constitute accusations. Wondering if there's anything wrong with a product of this apparent value, on e-Bay, and for such an outlandish sum is understandable. It's an odd case. My guess is that it's real and that none of the museums wanted to offer much money for it. Possibly all the major museums already have copies of the same or similar items. As for the huge price, well, people have a tendency to overvalue antiques, so maybe the book store guy hopes he'll get lucky and find a millionaire who likes cool Medieval stuff. Maybe he's hoping we'll forward the link to Richard Garriot. :-)  

En Lyonel 
_________________________________ 
Impedimentum via est (The obstacle is the path)

> Date: Tue, 4 May 2010 08:21:43 -0500
> From: rudin at peoplepc.com
> To: ansteorra at lists.ansteorra.org
> Subject: Re: [Ansteorra] For those of you with $185, 000 just lying around...
> 
> Vy wrote:
> 
> >Is it possible that his pictures are from another source?
> >I swear I've seen one of those grotesques before....... no expert mind you
> >she who knows just enough to get in trouble with,
> 
> Maybe you're right. Maybe these pictures are stolen, and he's really selling a dead earthworm. (By the way, my expert source points out that medieval scribes copied artwork all the time.)
> 
> Eve wrote:
> 
> > Why put something like this up on e-bay and not a more
> > standard auction-house style auction or are these sorts
> > of items so common that they just aren't worth the time
> > of larger auction houses? Why say that something is
> > signed by a certain binder and not include an image of
> > this signature?
> 
> I don't know. And neither do you. So you can either shrug your shoulders and admit you don't know, write him and ask, or make up nasty guesses about him.
> 
> Gabriele wrote:
> 
> > There is always the possibility that it is stolen. In
> > which case it couldn't be sold at an auction house. Of
> > course, it could be that the seller just doesn't want
> > to have to pay that much to sell it.
> 
> So is your theory that he's advertising 140 easily identifiable stolen items in the most public auction in the world, hoping that not one of 140 different victims of theft knows how to do an internet search, or that he is a completely honest merchant 139 times out of 140, and this one item is stolen? Either way, this is even sillier than the previous accusations.
> 
> Let's actually look at the evidence we have. He's a phenomenally well-respected seller (100% approval rating from his customers). He has a store name (The-Word Antiquarian Books). He's a professional antiquarian currently listing 140 items in a price range from $23 to $950,000, including 36 Bibles from several different centuries.
> 
> And people in the SCA who haven't researched him have accused him of fraud and / or theft, inventing wilder and wilder theories when the simple ones get shot down.
> 
> There is zero evidence of any kind of wrong-doing here, and a fair amount of evidence of an honest shop doing honest business. If he ever hears what's been said about him here, and then hears that the SCA cares about honor, he could never believe it.
> 
> This is one reason why the SCA has such a horrible reputation with professional historians and antiquarians.
> 
> Robin of Gilwell / Jay Rudin

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