Worlds Most Counterfeited Item Sneakers !!

[Pulsegleaner]

Well, there's a bit more than that, if you know where to look. But I agree the fakes are taking over. Though the Chinese stuff is mostly pretty easy to tell from the genuine article, unlike the Indonesian stuff (which can get really close) or some of the Indian stuff (the home grown stuff is pretty easy to tell, but since nowadays Venice actually makes more money selling the mosaic canes (what each design is made) than by making beads themselves, it didn't take some makers in India long to work out they could buy the canes, make the beads, give them an acid wash (to make them look old) and then sell the result as genuine antiques.

It doesn't help that in it's heyday, Venice made SO many of the beads that it is STILL possible to get your hands on canes for designs Venice hasn't made for decades if you know the right people, or are willing to use divers scraps (given that Venice is all canals, there are TONS of dropped shipments and swept in scraps at the bottom, and sometimes, when a canal is closed. the government lets people scuba dive and bring up what they can. I used to know a guy who pulled up a bit of cane made by Franchini (to Venetian millefiori cane making what Stradivarius was to violins.)

Here is a nice piece I saw this morning (I'd think about buying it, but I know this seller, and he's a real hassle to work with)

http://www.ebay.com/itm/RARE-OLD-LA...633901?hash=item3608214c2d:g:SjgAAOSw9IpXxOIG

 

[Pulsegleaner]

Comparison

Real

Fake

 

[Nyboy]

Like most fakes the quality is no where near the real deal

 

[Pulsegleaner]

But it's closer than anyone else has ever gotten.

I suppose I should just count myself lucky that they have largely confined themselves to replicating the commonest most iconic patterns, where there are plentiful real examples to compare. If they moved onto the rarer stuff there would probably be cases of being fooled because one had never seen an original to compare to outside of a book. That's probably why the replicas of Alexandrian (which are a LOT more complex than this) pass so easily, few people have a certified real one to compare.

Ironically, since replicating those ancient ones requires canes of much greater complexity than anything here (canes with fairly detailed facial portraits are not at all uncommon)* attempt to replicate rarer designs might be catch-able because the designs would be TOO accurate. If they tried to replicate the "crude rooster" cane (yes that's what it is called) the rooster might not be so crude.

 

[Nyboy]

How did you get started collecting them ?

 

[Pulsegleaner]

Don't really remember. I suppose my first definitive memory relating to them was during one of the Rock, Mineral, Jewelry and Gem shows at the Country Center in White Plains. There was a seller there who mostly sold findings, but did also have a selection of Venetian beads, including a few trade bead "factory strands" (that is strands as they were sent out from the makers, and had never made it into the actual trade market) that he sold bead by bead. One of the patterns he had there was one usually called the "peacock" (though, since I tend to classify designs that use the same shapes but different colors under the same name, I usually think of it as the "blue cucumber"* Of which I bought one for a fair amount of money (I later learned that the peacock is and extremely common bead; and I could have gotten one easily for a whole lot less than I paid). I guess that was where it began with that bead, plus two others (he had two strands so one of each, and the peacock strand had an mistake stringing of a "white cucumber" among all the blues. He's still there (and I think still has some of the strands) though it had been ages since I bought anything from him**

I was able to expand that collection quite a lot in later years. Mostly those expansions also came from the show, as there was another dealer couple who must have been the equivalent of an African bead trader (I say equivalent since the pair were both white and spoke unaccented English, so I tend to think they were not members of the largely Senegalese population of professional African bead traders.) From them, I was able to pick up a HUGE number of strands (The strands were a lot cheaper back then [$40, as opposed to $80-$200 now]. Also due to a combination of a generous allowance, parents who usually bough me everything I wanted outside of it, and a very limited amount of outside contact, I was a young kid with a LOT of disposable income.) including some extremely rare ones (I remember going to a show at the last minute [I was in the high school band we had to play for a football game that ran into overtime, and I had Sunday School the next day {Yes, I'm Jewish but we still had our religious school on Sundays, so that all the students could attend services on Saturdays}] with thirty minutes to be there before the show closed and running across the floor to find my parents and get money to buy a strand that had a rare adventurine*** containing cane (they were happy to do it, They had turned me down the previous time I had seen it some time ago, and I had been very upset about that since.) That gave me a very nice base****. At that time I also got some stuff from Beadworks in Connecticut, both the one in Norwalk (which still exists) and the one in Greenwich (which doesn't).

The next major expansion came in college (Junior year, I think, though it could have been Freshman) when I was at Cornell There was a bead store on the commons run by two very committed (if a bit hippy dippy) collectors, who when they saw I was a committed fellow collector, basically let me cherrypick the strands they got as soon as they got them in, so I got first look. There was also a bead shop in Cold Spring that was very helpful (not just in finding rare beads, but in the fact that the owner was happy to trade the beads wanted for duplicates I had accumulated.)

Nowadays, the pace is a lot more sedate, what with the lessening supply of quality merchandise, the increased cost, and more of my money being allotted to other things. I bought two beads at Beads of Paradise in the city about two weeks ago, but those where probably the only ones I have bought in almost six months. I get the odd thing from Ebay from time to time, but the competition is fierce, and I rarely win. Still I have a very impressive collection by now. It's no Picard collection (generally considered the finest collection of trade beads in the world) but it is quite impressive.

* Though even I am not immune from other names. The red version of the cucumber design I often call " the salami" and ones with only four circles in the middle (most have at least six or seven) I think of as "buttons"

** I think the last time was fiver or six years ago, when he got his hands on some pre-Communist revolution Chinese cloisonne beads (which are a lot more creative than the mass produced stuff that has been coming out since the 1970's)

*** Adventurine (also called goldstone) is a kind of glass in which tiny copper shavings have been suspended, giving the glass a sparkly look. It's classically copper colored, but nowadays blue and green versions are also made.

**** They also had a wide selection of vintage trade beads of Bohemian (Czech) origin, some of which were still in their factory bags, and must have dated from the 1940's or 50's (I know this because I bought quite a lot of bags of oval beads and then discovered years later, that the commonest color in them (a kind of grape green) got that way because of uranium oxide. (as alpha emitters only, they aren't dangerous, but they will set the hell off out of a Geiger counter!)

 

[Nyboy]

Wow very interesting, My first purchase of depression glass turned out to be reproduction.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

Found some listings for (fake) ancients (for some reason Thailand seems to be a sort of hub for this sort of thing)

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Lot-1-RARE-...7323244&pid=100005&rk=2&rkt=6&sd=152226327317

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Lot-3-Old-I...7323244&pid=100005&rk=4&rkt=6&sd=152226327317

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Collectible...7323244&pid=100005&rk=5&rkt=6&sd=152226327317

 

[Nyboy]

What is really scary seller has 100% positive feedback

 

[Pulsegleaner]

No what's really scary is that, in some cases it's almost become REQUIRED to cheat. You remember I mentioned the Krobo beads in my original post. Well, I have a whole mess of duplicates I am currently trying to sell off (it's the natural byproduct of a "I need one, but had to buy a whole strand to get it." situation. Part of why I an having so much trouble is because there isn't much demand (their out of fashion at the moment) but a big part is because I am honest. In general the only people who sell powder glass beads are the ones who lie through their teeth and describe them as ancient (which they aren't) Native American (again no) artifacts (or occasionally, ancient Venetian). It's true that a lot of the buyers of the original material were Native (they're popular for decorating Powwow garments). This is a double sided stab from my point of view, it blocks me from selling (since I won't lie like them and cheat people) and it convinces a lot of people that they really ARE ancient and valuable (which causes a lot of the bits I want to get priced WAY out of my range).
I've basically all but given up with them on Ebay (as soon as my last lot there expires, I'm trying for Etsy, where the crafty angle will probably result in better business.)