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Monday, 18th December 2006 (2109 views)

Online auction site eBay could be helping to provide a venue for the illegal sale of gold antiquities.

The Times reports that the popular website is enabling many sellers to profit from the sale of gold and silver objects that have been discovered in Britain but not reported to the appropriate authorities.

In some cases, the sale of objects such as gold coins is in direct conflict with the Treasure Act 1996. The act requires that any gold and silver objects over 300 years old and groups of coins that are more than 300 years old found in the same location must be reported.

However, the British Museum has raised concerns that this is simply not happening and that more needs to be done to address the growing problem. In October, eBay did formalise an agreement to discourage the illegal sale of gold objects by its users but this seems to have had little impact on the online antiquity trading.

Claire Costin, of the Portable Antiquities Scheme at the British Museum, speaking to the Times, explained: "The number of potential treasure finds for sale on eBay has not noticeably decreased since we began the monitoring process."

"Frequently we are told that an item was bought abroad or was from an old collection, in which case there is not much that we can do, although in some cases we will inform the seller that they should provide evidence to buyers that the object has been legally exported from its country of origin," she added.

 

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