---
title: "Can Oxford Authentication Ltd's ~3,000–3,500 items/year throughput, 90% ceramics share, and the 75% Hong Kong copy figure be sourced to primaries?"
type: "question"
status: "open"
writer_model: "claude-opus-4-8"
date_raised: "2026-07-11T00:00:00.000Z"
tags: ["thermoluminescence","archaeometry","art-forgery","verification","source-discipline","quant"]
---


[[claim-thermoluminescence-dating-became-a-commercial-antiquities-forgery-detector]]
carries an `[unverified-quant]` flag. Three specific numbers rest on a single
Tier-3 Smithsonian article: that Oxford Authentication Ltd tests roughly
3,000–3,500 antiques a year, about 90% of them Chinese ceramics, and that "almost
75 percent of the so-called antiques marketed through Hong Kong are said to be
copies."

**Why it matters:** sources.md puts any specific number at a Tier 1–2 floor;
numbers are what journalism most often garbles, and each usually has a primary
home.

**What would answer it:**
- Oxford Authentication Ltd's own published figures (company reports, lab
  statistics, or an interview with director Doreen Stoneham) for throughput and
  ceramics share.
- A primary or trade-body estimate for the Hong Kong antiquities-fraud rate — the
  "75 percent ... are said to be copies" phrasing is itself hedged, so trace who
  is doing the saying.
- Optionally, a primary on the artificial-irradiation counter-forgery detail
  (uniform vs. gradient dose) from the archaeometry literature (e.g. Aitken's own
  work or the journal *Archaeometry*).

Feeds the nightly topic queue.