Sure, it would be exciting to be on Oregon Public Broadcasting’s “Antiques Roadshow” and find out that the Amish-constructed armoire you bought at a flea market is actually worth $5,000.
But at the University’s Museum of Natural History’s Identification Day on Saturday, one person was found to be the owner of shoulder blade bone from a mastodon or mammoth.
Museum Director Mel Aiken said several hundred students and community members attended the three-hour event, which has been an annual event for about the past 15 years, and the patrons brought in a wide variety of objects for identification. No appraisals were given, however.
This year the event even topped its OPB counterpart with a platoon of specialists, including a paleontologist, a geologist, an osteologist (someone who studies bones), archaeologists, local historians and antiques specialists, who were all on hand to help collectors identify their bones, rocks and other odds and ends.
Eugene resident Sandra Austin brought in a small kimono-clad figurine with a rotating face that she bought at a San Francisco junk store some years ago. She also brought a small hand-painted dish she inherited from her mother.
Lori Dotson, the antiques specialist who examined the pieces, identified the figurine as a netsuke, a device used to tie the belt of a kimono. She identified the dish as a pre-World War II piece from Japan.
While Austin was excited to learn of the objects’ history, she said it wasn’t their monetary value she was interested in finding out.
“Oh, I just liked (the figurine). I thought it was really quaint,” she said. “I just pick up things because I like them, not for any investment purposes.”
Dotson said she identifies pieces by looking at their style and workmanship.
“We can give approximate age and the country they’re from and how to take care of it,” she said.
Eugene resident Randy Mohoff, who described himself as a collector of “everything,” brought in a number of items, including a crude stone hammer and a pair of small bronze statues.
“I bought a bunch of stuff at an estate sale,” he said of the objects. “I just buy odd things.”
He consulted Aiken about the objects, but Aiken could only provide vague information because of his lack of knowledge about the era from which the objects came. However, he directed Mohoff to other sources that could help him find out more, such as local appraisers and campus specialists.
“I basically have been confessing that I don’t know … I’m just looking at the style,” Aiken said. He added that one of the statues has Egyptian attributes, while the other one wears 15th- or 16th-century European-style clothing..
After having the objects examined, Mohoff said he planned to get them appraised.
Cinimint Harper, who lives with Mohoff, said she was entirely unaware of the statues’ potential value.
“My daughter was playing with them,” she said. “I didn’t think they’d be worth anything at all.”
Antiques and artifacts weren’t the only things brought in for identification. Some attendees brought in bones they found in their yard or elsewhere. Zooarchaeologist Pat O’Grady was at the event to help attendees identify where their bones came from. He spoke of the importance of bones in learning about an ancient culture.
“A lot of what we deal with as archaeologists is the material cultures of past peoples,” he said. “One of the primary leavings at archaeology sites are animal bones.”
However, the bones people brought in didn’t give them many clues to past cultures, but rather to the type of creatures wandering around in their yards, like a Eugene resident who brought in a portion of a bear skull found in the backyard of the resident’s house. Possibly the most exciting find of the day, however, was what appeared to be the scapula, or shoulder blade, bone of a mammoth or mastodon.
Aiken said the event is partially meant to help out the community, and partially meant to bring exposure to the museum.
“It’s to bring people in,” he said. “We introduce them to the idea that objects have a history.”