Object Claiming to Be So-Called "London Artifact" Sold in Online Auction

​An object claiming to be one of the most famous “out of place artifacts,” or OOPARTS, in the ancient mysteries genre went up for sale on January 5 at an online auction and brought a surprisingly low $330. However, the object is almost certainly a fake.

​The “London Hammer” or “London Artifact,” a nineteenth century mining hammer found embedded in a rock concretion in London, Texas, in 1936, achieved fame as an artifact from a vanished prehistoric civilization when creationists claimed it dated back before the Flood. (Some claim it is Cretaceous in date, based on the age of the rocks where it was claimed to be found.) Creationist Carl Baugh brought the artifact international attention when he purchased it in 1983 for his Creation Evidence Museum and began to associate it with Nephilim giants.

The auctioned object.

The original hammer on display at the Creation Evidence Museum.

​A Creation Evidence Museum representative told me via phone this morning that the original artifact remains on display at the museum. “The original one is here,” she said, noting that “people come from around the world” to see it at the Texas-based museum.
 
However, there is a potential answer. “They (the museum) had made replicas, and they were made out of some sort of resin,” the representative added. A man named Joe Taylor cast the replica London Artifacts from a mold made from the original, and they were sold at the museum in the 1990s and early 2000s for around $25. Auction photos show a line along the side of the object that resembles a mold mark.
 
The piece claiming to be the London Artifact was sold (as “lawn and garden tools”!) on January 5 as part of the Melvin Weaver collection of fossils through the John M. Hess Auction Service of Pennsylvania.