via Fodor’s Travel, 10 March 2022: As travel and tourism once again picks up in Southeast Asia, a reminder about why you shouldn’t be buying random antiques.
Travelers don’t always have an easy task when browsing through the loads of eye-catching antiques in a shop or at a market abroad.
“This piece is very, very old,” says the seller, possibly pointing to a range of ancient coins, paintings, statues, or rings. Hearing this phrase from the mouth of a dealer should put a buyer on alert. Innocent as they might look at local markets or art dealers, some works of art may in fact come from shady sources.
In situations like this, explains Phacha Phanomvan, a Thai scholar specializing in looted artifacts, the seller “is either cheating us, most probably, or offering something that should not leave the country.” Phacha recommends avoiding “antiquities or any materials claiming to be antique. Be mindful that artifacts, if genuine, are likely looted or illegally taken from the sites.”
