# I may be in posession of a museum piece.



## Sam Wamm (Nov 21, 2020)

I have an item that looks alot like this.






the item pictured is a museum piece from 4000 years ago.

link: Bactrian Ibex

it's been in my family's posession for longer than we know the history of our family, though what we can confirm stretches back to when my ancestors lived in Hungary in the 17h century.

we know that our family used to live in Syria before that from knowledge that's been passed down but we have no idea how long they lived in the area before then.

according to my family this object is a Ibex from around Syria and part of a set that has since been lost to time.

my family had used it as a child's toy for some time probably unaware of the value but around the time we lived in Hungary the item was deemed to have too strong a sentimental value to risk being broken and was carefully preserved, especially as at that time we were shepherds and the item along with other farming related items we had taken on some family superstitions surrounding the items.

A relative named "Fox", a young man of the family, became involved in the political events at the time as did many young people at the time by following the hype train so to speak and foolishly lost many of the items our family held dear, however, this one remained in our family's posession.

there are a few other items the family supposedly kept from back in the 17th century though i believe the others to be more modern replicas of the items made from visual desriptions which had carried down the family of which some have been confirmed to be already.

i had also assumed the same for this item but looking at the picture of the museum piece and how closely it resembles the item i have i am no longer so sure about it.

is their a way i can date the item to be sure and if possible i'd like to know the price the museum might be willing to buy it for since my family is in dire need of money right now.

Yeah I'm kinda posting this to every social network I'm part of so sorry if this seems a little odd to be posting here.


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## Ramjet (Nov 21, 2020)




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## Ramjet (Nov 21, 2020)

To be serious though, that is a cool back story to that item.

I can imagine you could search around in your area for people that appraise items such as this.


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## Sam Wamm (Nov 21, 2020)

Ramjet556 said:


> To be serious though that is a cool back story to that item.
> 
> I can imagine you could search around in your area for people that appraise items such as this.


yeah, my great relative Fox was young and stupid and got themselves roped into a terrorist group in 17th century Hungary.

He kill a bunch of Catholic priests in Slovakia and then got killed himself.

Ran away with the family silver to pay for it all and that's how we lost a bunch of precious family heirlooms.

I'm told that "Fox" in Hungarian means "axe".


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## Toby_Morpheus (Nov 21, 2020)

Yeah, take it to an appraiser.
Real life antiques roadshow lol


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## Sam Wamm (Nov 21, 2020)

Toby_Morpheus said:


> Yeah, take it to an appraiser.
> Real life antiques roadshow lol


i'm not sure an antiquities appraiser is gonna know about things from biblical times to be honest.


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## Ramjet (Nov 21, 2020)

Sam Akuchin Wamm said:


> i'm not sure an antiquities appraiser is gonna know about things from biblical times to be honest.



A proper one would for sure.


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## Zehlua (Nov 22, 2020)

THAT'S COOL! The oldest thing I have is a 200 year old dress, to my knowledge! You've got something way cooler than that!


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## Foxy Emy (Nov 22, 2020)

That is awesome!


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## Faustus (Dec 2, 2020)

Does yours also have horns made out of lapis lazuli?


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## Sam Wamm (Dec 2, 2020)

Faustus said:


> Does yours also have horns made out of lapis lazuli?


i can't really tell what the horns are made of but it looks like the ones in the picture do.

not sure if it's like metallic or crystaline. it's kinda both.


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## Faustus (Dec 2, 2020)

Sam Akuchin Wamm said:


> i can't really tell what the horns are made of but it looks like the ones in the picture do.
> 
> not sure if it's like metallic or crystaline. it's kinda both.


It's a semi-precious stone favoured by the Egyptians, amongst others, typically dark blue with black 'clouds'. You can tell Afghanistan lapis lazuli because it has small flecks of gold-coloured iron pyrite in it. The original image you show is not entirely clear because the stone has not been polished to the usual shine, but it looks like Afghanistan lapis lazuli to me. I have polished and unpolished pieces around my collection somewhere.

(btw don't get too excited; lapis isn't worth much, with or without pyrite inclusions. Still, worth taking it to a local museum and asking their opinion. To me it looks rather like a goat that I think I once saw in a very old 'Noah's Ark' play set, though the Internet isn't finding any images that look the same as I remember.)


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## Faustus (Dec 2, 2020)

That said, it could also be blue soapstone. That's pretty common in carvings because it's relatively soft and easy to shape.


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## Simo (Dec 7, 2020)

Sam Akuchin Wamm said:


> I have an item that looks alot like this.
> 
> View attachment 94413
> 
> ...



That's certainly a curious piece!

One thing you might do is contact an auction house, or even a specialist within one in the antiquities department. This is something I am also planning on, with a 'tiki' statue I have, from Papua New Guinea. Most of them now allow you to send video/pictures of pieces, with a view to giving an estimate as to what the item would fetch. From what I hear, they'll be pretty honest, as a sale for you also means a sale for them. 

It may seem a bit far-fetched, but Christie's, Sotheby's Phillips and Bonham's all have regular auctions of such items, selling from a few thousand to a few million...and all also have UK offices. And they have experience in museum quality pieces.

Worth a shot, and good luck here; I hope it turns out you have a small fortune on your hooves : )


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## Xitheon (Dec 8, 2020)

Sam Akuchin Wamm said:


> I have an item that looks alot like this.
> 
> View attachment 94413
> 
> ...



I'd find it hard to part with something so precious but life sucks. So sorry. It's amazing.


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## Sam Wamm (Dec 9, 2020)

turns out my figure might be a copy but it's a copy that was still made hundreds of years ago so it might still be worth something.

also i found out other stuff we thought was super old are more recent copies as well.

they were either made to fool the family the 17th century into thinging they still had the items or the family in the 17th century made them to fool other people at the time into thinking they still had them.


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