A couple of my best finds

[Mark Todd]

These pieces were found by me in the mid-late 1980's. I live in a County that is rich in Indian Artifacts of most cultures but it's hardly as if they're everywhere and easy to be found. Like other rich counties (and there are hundreds of them) if you happen to be in the right place at the right time you might just find something amazing! And many have ,myself included. Here are the 2 finest knives I ever found and although the lesser of the two was a super find for me, the even nicer specimen stands head and shoulders above it. They are both archaic barbed "hardin" knives. The smaller of the two is light brownish/tan w/reddish-orange inclusions bleeding through it (sadly they are not observable in the photos. The larger Hardin was found when Bill P. And I were headed back to St David from Liverpool Il and we noticed how well a particular field had been smoothed out by the rains. I pulled into the gravel drive of a little house at the corner of the field and knocked, an old fellow answered and I asked if he owned the field and if we could hunt it, he said "yes I do and you can, but you won't find anything
Because it was hunted out a long time ago. The old mans name was Harley Preston and I proceeded to find one of the finests barbed Hardins known in the collectors world, granted there could be several competing specimens in private collections that are not known to collectors, regardless the exceptional quality of this piece is not my opinion , rather it it is the opinion of high end collectors and nationally recognized Artifact brokers. One said it is one of the two best examples in the nation, another said; one of the best half dozen, several told me; one of the finest dozen and a half or two known. I believe it's safe to say that that this is one of the best 50 Hardins in the Nation and I'm very grateful to have been the one who found it. It has a needle tip point, some of the sharpest needle tip serrations known and great but not perfect symmetry ( the stem is slightly out of symmetry w/ the blade) however the exceptional knapping skills of the artisan who made this blade left hardly any scars., making this blade almost polishedView attachment 1177546View attachment 1177547View attachment 1177548View attachment 1177549View attachment 1177550View attachment 1177551View attachment 1177552View attachment 1177553View attachment 1177554View attachment 1177555

 

[Mark Todd]

I was not " the best surface finder in FULTON CO. I was just the most fortunate.

 

[scepter1]

Mark,

I'm getting "invalid attachment" for each of your photos...

 

[Mark Todd]

Scepter1, I have not a clue what that means

 

[Mark Todd]

Here's a couple photos from Bobby Onkin's LEGENDS Of PREHISTORIC ART...

 

[Mark Todd]

From the mid states archeaological journal

 

[scepter1]

Absolutely amazing !

 

[theviking]

Wow, killer artifacts. Ya gotta love a big well made Hardin, thanks for the show.

 

[rock]

So are those yours in the book Mark?

 

[Mark Todd]

Hope this clarifies "rock", only
"Two" total are mine (correction , were found by me). The forth pick is of my bullseye Hardin in a frame of Ollies best Hardins collection. He owned mine for a couple of decades and says its was defiantly his finest hardin, considering the competition in that picture, that's saying something. In Bob Onkens LEGENDS book only the middle one was mine, and at the time that book was written that one had been acquired by Rob Vancil, it now resides in the Dodd DeCamp collection in Houston.
And if anyone's wondering what its present value is (seems absurd to me) try mid $30,000's but finding it... PRICELESS. HH "rock"

 

[Red Earth]

Nice Hardins. Impressive to say the least.

 

[Mark Todd]

Thanks "Red Earth", thought I better post something after telling you I had found a couple of FULTON County's finest, didn't want you to think I was just blowing smoke. If I get time I'll post my nicest find (this weekend??). Best regards to you and your family, HH!

 

[Charl]

Wow, had no idea the value reached that level. Congrats on being the one who found them.

 

[Mark Todd]

Wow, had no idea the value reached that level. Congrats on being the one who found them.

I honestly had know idea that monetary values had reached such high amounts either. Ive never purchased an artifact in my life, but I did sell 4 of my own at the end of the Jimmy Carter years and couple of years thereafter when you couldn't get a job at the gas station or the deli, and interest rates at the bank were in the high teens to low twenties. That bullseye Harden brought $2,000 in 1986 which seemed unreal to me at the time.
About 6 or 8 months ago I came across an auction news listing on the internet that showed a picture of classmate of mines "Clovis " that had sold for $70 some thousand $'s , that's when I decided to look into the present value of the two nicest artifacts I had sold.
When I was told mid $30,000's for the Harden and $50,000 & up for a perfect translucent hourglass bannerstone that I had sold in 1982 my response was the same as yours, I thought; how could they have appreciated that much in 30 years!
I can only speculate, and that's all the following is "speculation"; #1, fakes are ubiquitous and proliferating constantly therefore raising the market value of elite artifacts with unquestioned provenance.
Old fashioned stickers and labels are even being fabricated to make fakes look like they came from an old collection. I attended the Collinsville Artifact show last winter (one of the premier shows in the nation) and was told by several collectors that a lot of what was there was fake. I don't have the expertise to know whether that's true or false, but I presume that there is at least "some" truth to it.
#2, due to new farming methods and ever encroaching laws, known or newly discovered sites are being restricted from investigation " even by Archeologists ", all of this means less supply and more demand, "101 economics", just my thoughts.
In volume 1 of Bobby Onkens " Legends of Prehistoric Art , he writes about the unprecedented increase in value of High end Artifacts from the seventies and eighties to the present, "500-1,000%"!!!
Well, hind site is 20/20 and had I known ahead of time I would have saved those Artifacts for retirement and payed Sears &Roebuck interest rates for a loan.
The fact is, we are not granted to know the future in advance "at least concerning these things" but my wife and I were very grateful to have these Artifacts as a means to survive the Carter era, and I have no regrets for selling them at the time, we considered it an amazing providence!