In early June of 2011, co­author Goldhahn was contacted by a former student who had discovered that a bronze spearhead was for sale on the Swedish on­line auction site Tradera. The web site informed potential buyers that the spearhead been purchased at an auction in Västervik in Tjust, a town situated in Southeast Sweden. The spearhead (fig. 1) was described as follows:

Bronze Age/bronze spear Late Bronze Age, with a hole in the socket, rare, possibly cast in Sweden, found by farmers long ago near Västervik, Småland. The tip is worn c. 1 cm, beautiful patina, well preserved but a bit corroded, castingcrack on one of the wings, 12 cm long, 3.5 cm wide, socket 2 cm.

The auction ended on 8 June 2011 with the spearhead being sold to an anonymous buyer for SEK 1025 plus SEK 24 in postage. This generous person decided to donate the spearhead to the Linnæus University’s on­going project “Pictures of the Bronze Age along the Baltic coast of Southeast Sweden” (Goldhahn et al. 2012).

Related finds from Tjust Bronze spearheads are rare in the Västervik­Tjust area (Widholm 1998; Palm 2012; Dahlin 2014). Only four were known before, the new one being the fifth (fig. 2):