Ken's Korner: Golden eagle headdress turns up prior to auction

Ken’s Korner: Golden eagle headdress turns up prior to auction – The Journal of Antiques and Collectibles – May 2006
Give credit to Paul Brown, vice president of Red Baron’s Antiques in Atlanta, for having an eagle eye. Just a few days before the firm’s big spring auction in early March, Brown was going through a box of Native American artifacts slated for sale when he spotted contraband: an American Indian headdress made of golden eagle feathers. Golden and bald eagles have been protected by the government since 1940. An agent from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service seized the headdress.
The National Eagle Repository has been enlisted to determine which tribe the artifact came from. If it can be identified, it will be repatriated. If not, the feathers will be turned over to the Repository. Brown said the box of items came from “out West” and once belonged to a caregiver for the late actor Burt Lancaster. Which begs the question: Could the headdress have been a prop? Perhaps, but it still contains golden eagle feathers, and it’s against the law to own or sell them.

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