Indian arrow tips for flintlocks

[rdstrain49]

When I first started reading this topic I thought, boring. What I did not realize was that in spite of myself I have learned quite a bit. Welcome knowledge indeed since I have just started shooting flintlocks. Who'd a thunk it.

 

[Bo T]

How hard is it to make copies of these artifacts that would be difficult to identify as copies?

 

[Nativearizonan]

How hard is it to make copies of these artifacts that would be difficult to identify as copies?

Flint knapping is a learnable trade. I've made a few arrowheads, and bloodied my fingers a bit with the sharp edges, but there are people who can make just about anything you can find. If they bury it in the ground for a while, you can't tell the difference. There is no way to really date stone, that I know of.

The guys that are good at knapping, though, can sell their products for a good price without having to try and defraud someone. Most artists like to claim credit for what they do, although there are always some driven by the desire to fool others, and will go to great lengths to do so. No big money in fake stone artifacts though, it's peanuts compared to other forms of fraud.

 

[Bruce M]

Many modern arrow heads are made, some are hard to tell from originals.I have seen them made from glass and even ceramic floor tiles.I have found hundreds of them, eyes are getting bad don't look anymore.

 

[Gene L]

I meant to say archery in America dates to 500 AD, not BC.

It's easy enough to fake an arrow, spear, atlatl head. I suppose flint knapping kinda ruined the Indian artifact business and deflated the value of those who collect them.

 

[Eric Krewson]

I know guys who can reproduce anything, including deeply fluted points. Unless you picked up a point up off the ground I would be leary of its authenticity, too many shysters out there.

The real artists in stone sign their work with a diamond pen to keep them from being represented as authentic.

 

[Gene L]

The real artists do, but for every knapper who is signing their work, several dozen aren't. There is no provenance in modern points. Most modern points are bigger than arrow heads...the bigger the better.

 

[M. De Land]

I make all my own flints now out of heat treated Keokuk Chert from Oklahoma and they work as well as any I have ever bought from TOTW.

 

[inthex]

Try,em and see. The first sparks my flintlock ever threw were from a broken point I had laying around. As far as value I don't think these broken points are worth much, except for any historic value you may place on them. For me, their all a little piece of history that I can hold. But upon getting my kit in the white and realizing I hadn't bought any flint yet, and really wanting to here it go boom, I came up with a piece I could part with. Good luck.

 

[M. De Land]

Knapped arrow and spear points are worked from both sides to produce the serrated edges where as a good gun flint will be flat on the bottom or nearly so.
This is so because gun flints are struck from a portion of a flint node called a core which will have a ridge down its length from top to bottom.
The ridge point at the top of the core acts as a platform from which to strike a flake with a percussor.
The ridge stiffens the flake so that the impact fracture will follow down the length of the core to the bottom.
This ridge becomes the hump on on the back of most knapped gun flints which are parted off at 90
degrees to the length of the flake. That is why the striking edge of the flint will be more or less parallel to the ridge on it's back.
I like flat flakes for my own gun flints then the edge is pressure flaked only downward leaving a one sided serrated edge. It is stronger this way as each serration has a small ridge on either side to support it from crushing upon impact with the frizzen. When they get dull than a new row of serrations are pressure flake using the previous ridges for platforms to set up the new line of serrations.
When sharpening a worn edge the ridges are pressure flaked from the opposite side to even up and to lower or raise the strike edge but the flint bottom remains more or less flat from it's origin.
This is why they last so well because the ridges discourage edge fracture.

 

[cynthialee]

After reading the thread and pondering on things, it seems that we have plenty of museum pieces in museums. Hell most such places sit in obscurity and sparsely visited. So it seems that we have plenty of artifacts for the historic record.

If the flint works in the gun and you need it why not?
Now I would be likely to only use a broken flint arrowhead as a complete one would be too cool to use and would make a better curio on the shelf.

As an aside I have a modern made obsidian knife that is a serious solid item. Looks like a cave man made it but it is brand new. Never used it for anything...Point I bring it up is that the skill to make such items still exists in modern memory, so these are not vital artifacts.
(now if I was to find a Clovis Point that'd change my take...I'd never put a Clovis Point piece on my gun. just too cool to use up like that)

 

[coloradoclyde]

One of my points appears to be a Clovis point....the other as best as I can tell is Early Woodland Adena....
Dug them up near my grand fathers cabin when I was a child...

 

[Col. Batguano]

It can e very difficult to tell an old stone tool from on made more recently, particularly when there are no minerals in there (like iron pyrite) that will weather out over time. I'm guessing more than a few "genuine Indian arrow heads" might indeed have been made by Indians, but their age might not be what the vendor represented at the time of the sale. :wink:

 

[coloradoclyde]

Considering where, when and how mine were discovered....if they are fake then that is an even more incredible story than a 3000 year old artifact....

 

[M. De Land]

In 2003 I was taking a raft trip down the interior Alaska river of "40 mile" with my kids and some others into the Yukon river and pulling out at Eagle AK.The trip was about 110 miles long and took eight days as I remember.
We stopped at the old town sight of 40 mile at the confluence of the 40 mile and Yukon rivers and happened to catch and archeological dig team on sight excavating in front of the original RCMP head quarters. They were down about four feet and had removed some points from about 600 years ago when the natives of the area had switched from bone and ivory points to flint through trade. The Canadian University was pretty excited to find this evidence of the when the local tribes had begun to make a change in their weaponry.
It was one of our annual but more memorable raft trips here in AK.