[MSN] Historic artefacts may be up for sale illegally on eBay despite moves to clamp down on the trade in "treasure", the British Museum has said.

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Museum warns of illegal eBay treasure trading
18.12.06 
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Historic artefacts may be up for sale illegally on eBay despite moves to
clamp down on the trade in "treasure", the British Museum has said.

The museum's Department of Portable Antiques and Treasure found an average
of almost 3,500 antiquities were on sale on the internet auction site each
day between August and September this year.

Around 50 of the objects could potentially have been "treasure" under the
terms of the 1996 Treasure Act and therefore belong to the Crown, the
department's deputy head Michael Lewis said.

Any items discovered in England and Wales which qualify under the act - for
example objects which are at least 10% gold or silver and more than 300
years old - must be reported to the local coroner within 14 days.

In October, eBay.co.uk teamed up with the Museums, Libraries and Archives
Council (MLA) and the British Museum to allow the museum's Portable
Antiquities Scheme (PAS) to monitor the site, contact sellers and report
illegal listings to the police.

But the British Museum said it had seen no "noticeable drop" in the number
of potential treasures on the site since the agreement, although it
acknowledged it was "still early days".

Mr Lewis said his department wanted to see the law tightened to oblige
sellers to report objects, and not just the people who find them. He said:
"Some people are using all sorts of mechanisms to sell objects instead of
reporting them.

"They are obliged to report finds to the coroner within 14 days, but some
people aren't doing that and selling them in all sorts of places, and eBay
is a big market.

"We have concerns about people breaking the law, but also from the
archaeological perspective the treasure process allows the opportunity to
record the information, and without it that information is lost."

He added: "People are buying objects on eBay and they need to be buying them
in confidence that there is nothing wrong with them.

"People are buying objects and they are not asking questions about them."

When contacted by the monitoring scheme, some people said they were dealers
and did not know where the item came from, while others said it came from
abroad.

Mr Lewis said potential treasure items should come with documentation to
show they had been reported and disclaimed by the Crown, while artefacts
from abroad should have been imported legally.

An eBay spokesman today said the site had a good working relationship with
the British Museum and had not been aware of any issues the museum had. "In
many cases, sellers innocently trade items on the web, unaware that finds
need to be reported under the provisions of the Treasure Act.

"eBay has therefore also worked with the British Museum and PAS to create a
guide to buying and selling antiquities safely on its site with advice about
reporting obligations," the spokesman said.

The eBay guide is at: http://pages.ebay.co.uk/buy/guides/antiquities.

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