Like many others, I find eBay a very useful research tool.  I have made use of it for
several years now, including using non-copyrighted photos in local reports and
publications.  Because of the nature of my current research (tightening up
manufacturer's marks dates and identification), I am involved in a lot of small detail
research that adapts itself well to eBay.  Sellers rarely include sufficient detail for my
needs, but most respond well to requests for additional information.  Many have gone
so far as to look through their collections or sales stock to help find information (even
though I have identified myself as a researcher, rather than a buyer.

The categories on eBay can be a bit overwhealming, so much so that sellers often
cannot find the best place to peddle their wares.  For example, I usually check
Home/Buy/Collectibles/Bottles & Insulators/Bottles followed by Antique (pre-1900),
Modern (1900-now), and Collectibles/Breweriana, Beer to lead me to bottle marks.
However, numerous bottles are sold at Collectibles/Advertising that are not also
listed on the various bottle pages.  I usually restrain myself from digging into every
little nook and cranny.  That takes too much time.

At the risk of provoking yet another discussion about ethics (as we have been over
this ground several times in the past couple of years), I want to point out that if every
archaologist in the world stopped buying all bottles that have been dug or dug and
cleaned (assuming you could tell about the last category), the sale of such items
would not be greatly reduced, and the inducement to dig for bottles and sell them on
such media as eBay would not be reduced by as much as a single digger/seller.
This has become a vast and profitable business, and our participation or lack thereof
will be as a pebble tossed into a pond.  The tiny wake will remain unnoticed by most
of the pond.

Bill


> But Meli, the nexus between Ebay and artifacts is the provenience and
> ethics. In truth, a lot more information gets lost every time there is
> an estate sale. I have seen mounds of photographs sold piecemeal,
> diaries split up all over creation with zero thought to who authored
> them, and every receipt for auto mechanic work to old checks sold on
> Ebay. But items dug up (and there are many), we have to hold the line
> there in my book. While people may fake flaked stone, there is a huge
> underground market of bottles, cap guns, marbles, and rusted things
> from privies that end up on Ebay and we should be cautious in
> approaching that stuff. Bob's point that bottles with labels probably
> were handed down from one house to another, as opposed to dug up in a
> local privy.
>
> Ron May
> Legacy 106, Inc.


Bill Lockhart
New Mexico State University
Alamogordo, NM
(505) 439-3732