Conman used Poundland notepad to make fake provenance document

  A fraudster tried to sell an artefact with a provenance document produced from a Poundland notebook, a court heard. Aleksander Ribnikov took a shallow libation bowl, called a Greek patera, to Timeline Auctions Ltd in Harwich, Essex, on 30 November last year. The conman claimed he bought it in 1987 from a man in Swansea. Ribnikov produced the fake provenance document and the item was accepted for sale as dating back to the 4th or 5th century BC with…