Pieces of Plymouth Rock being sold

BOSTON, Nov. 27 (UPI) -- Pieces of Plymouth Rock have been sold on eBay, but a Massachusetts expert says they would be impossible to authenticate.

A Cape Cod man sold what he said was piece of Plymouth Rock for $609 in an eBay online auction recently. But another recent eBay listing of a piece of the rock where the Mayflower Pilgrims supposedly landed in 1620, sold for more than $909, the Boston Globe reported Sunday.

The Cape Cod man said he got his rock from the late lawyer of a geologist who said he got it from a former director of the Pilgrim Society, which gave Plymouth Rock and the land where it sits to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 1920.

His rock came with the Pilgrim Society director's business card that had a handwritten note that said, "A bit of Plymouth Rock taken from the original around 1858."

However, Peggy Baker, the executive director of the Pilgrim Society, said many had chipped off a piece of the rock in the 18th and 19th centuries, but determining if any piece of rock came from the original was difficult.