CURIOSITIES
Dutch Garden Yields Mystery Amulet; Finder Seeks Learned Opinion
A Reddit user says a tarnished silver pendant surfaced in a Netherlands backyard after fresh soil was laid, and nobody has yet said what it is.
THE NETHERLANDS — A Reddit user posting to r/occult has appealed to the board's members for help in identifying an amulet said to have been discovered in a backyard in the Netherlands in 2016, shortly after new soil was spread across the ground.
According to the post, the object is probably silver. The author bases this on its density and on the way it darkened to a grey tone as it tarnished, though no testing of any kind is reported. The finder offers no description of its markings, shape or size in the text, and the photograph that presumably accompanied the post is not available to this correspondent.
The author confesses to a measure of regret. Out of curiosity, the post says, the piece was polished, and in the process some scratches were caused. The finder adds that a string was threaded through it personally, as the intention at the time was to wear it as a necklace, a plan the author cheerfully marks with an emoticon.
Two questions are put to the community: what the object might be, and what it might be worth. At the time of writing, the source material records no answers, and nothing in it suggests the amulet has any occult significance beyond its resemblance to one. The soil, it may be noted, arrived from an unstated source, and the post does not speculate on its origin.
Readers with knowledge of Dutch antiquities, or of silver generally, are presumably the ones the author hopes to reach.