Posted on 05/27/2008 3:21:27 PM PDT by blam
Rag and bone cup dates to 300BC
Last Updated: 9:40PM BST 27/05/2008
The grandson of a rag and bone man who acquired a small metal cup is in line for a windfall after discovering it is a pure gold vessel dating back to the third or fourth century BC.
A rag and bone man gave his grandson the pure gold vessel, which is from the third or fourth century BC The piece could be worth hundreds of thousands of pounds.
The 5½ in cup, believed to be from the Achaemenid empire, has two female faces looking in opposite directions, their foreheads decorated with a snake motif.
Experts were baffled by the piece, but laboratory analysis of the gold put it in the third or fourth century BC. The Achaemenid empire was based around Persia, but at its height stretched from Iran to Libya. It was wiped out by Alexander the Great in 330BC.
The gold cup was acquired in the late 1930s or early 1940s by rag and bone man William Sparks in Taunton, Somerset. He was a scrap metal dealer and before his death in the late 1940s he gave it to his young grandson John Webber.
Believing it to be brass or bronze, Mr Webber put the cup, along with other gifts, in a box and forgot about it until last year when he moved house.
Realising that it could be made from gold, he began to research the object, which he believes could be worth up to £500,000. Laboratory tests confirmed its age and that it had been painstakingly crafted from one piece of gold.
Mr Webber, 70, said: "My grandfather was originally a proper rag and bone man from Romany stock and lived in a caravan.
"My father died in the war and afterwards my grandfather gave me some things shortly before he died.
"Because he mainly dealt in brass and bronze, I thought that was what it was made from.
"I put it in a box and forgot about it. Then last year I moved house and took it out to have a look and I realised it wasn't bronze or brass.
"I sent it to the British Museum and the experts there hadn't seen anything like it before and recommended I had it tested at a laboratory."
The vessel will be sold at Duke's auction house in Dorchester, Dorset, on June 5. Guy Schwinge, a spokesman, said: "The scientific analysis of the cup speaks for itself. Bearing in mind the differing views of the experts it will be fascinating to see what happens on the day of the auction."
There’s a line in “Annie Hall”, something like “A Foul-Rag-and-Bone Shop-of-the-Heart”; but anyway, there’s a “Skull and Bones Society” at Yale. Egads! A Yale Man!
No, the rag and bone man’s grandson mistook it for brass
“Treasure handed down from family you get to keep more of. “
Well leave it to the gypsey to figure that out.
A beautiful bauble. That would never get lost under MY bed. Considering the British rules about "found" treasuer, I'm not sure that I believe his story. But, it is amazing that it has survived all these years in such good condition.
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