Fakes, Forgeries and Wishful Thinking

Since everyone is a little obsessed with the Gold Elephant at the moment, let’s have another general discussion about fakes and forgeries in the hobby.

The next time you have the opportunity to go to an art museum, keep this thought in mind: at least a handful of the things you’ll be looking at are fakes or forgeries:

https://www.fastcompany.com/90170415/so-many-museums-are-filled-with-fake-paintings

It’s not necessarily the consequence of lazy or sloppy research: there are some really good forgers out there, and sometimes the allure of having a work by an important artist will override any questions that may arise about stylistic anachronisms or (most often) provenance.

Usually what happens after an item is determined to be a forgery, it’s either quietly taken out of public display, or – if the piece is itself quite old and of some merit in and of itself – reattributed to the artist who actually created it, if known.

Like the notorious Han van Meegeren, who made a fortune faking Vermeers – works by the 17th century Dutch artist, not the recent Premier Club release Friesian.

It would not surprise me if I have some fakes in my Breyer collection: you buy few thousand models in your lifetime, you’re going to end up with at least a handful of questionable ones. (I can think of two, in particular, that I am a bit fuzzy about.)

We have some very talented forgers in the hobby too.

And many not so talented; I’m always so surprised when I see things that are very obvious fakes go for significant sums on eBay.

Many of these pieces eventually go the way of more upscale art pieces and are either never seen again, or are correctly attributed – and sometimes collected in their own right, much like Hong Kong Knock-Offs.

The only problem with the pieces that disappear from public view is that often the rest of the hobby doesn’t get the memo – or learn the lesson.

Then there are some fakes or forgeries that persist because of wishful thinking: we’d all like to believe that we’ve found something wonderful, magical and rare, even when evidence points to the contrary.

Some of the most uncomfortable conversations I’ve had with other hobbyists have been when someone is looking for validation of a purchase, and I can’t give it to them. Some people accept the opinion and move on, sometimes after getting confirmation from others.

(No biggie: I am sometimes wrong.)

And others won’t stop until they find the opinion they are looking for. Everybody in the hobby has an opinion on just about anything, so chances are they’ll eventually find it.

Runs and Drips

I’m not going to elaborate any further than this, but I’m going to pretend that this weekend didn’t happen. Nothing particularly awful, just extremely unproductive and frustrating.

For the next week or two, as I get some long overdue paperwork and spring cleaning over and done with, the posts will be a bit on the short side, length-wise.

For example, today’s topic is about drips. Drips like this one, on an otherwise very nice Chalky Pacer:

While the general consensus seems to be that runs and drips are a clear indicator that a finish has either been tampered with, or falsified entirely, that’s simply not the case.

Although they are not common, they do show up from time to time usually – as is the case here – on Basecoated Chalkies.

Every once and a while you will also see runs and drips on early Glosses, too – particularly items from the 1950s and early 1960s. I’ve owned at least one Gloss Family Arabian Stallion with factory dripping, and I’ve seen a handful of Western Horses and Ponies suffering from similar painting malfunctions.

These are a little more controversial, because Glosses are pretty easy to fake, but identifying a genuine Gloss drip or run is like identifying a genuine Chalky finish: once you see one in person, it tends to become very obvious.

For the record, I don’t try to “fix” these kinds of factory flaws if I come across them, especially if the model is otherwise presentable. It’s part of the history of the model, and gentle reminder that those “Good Old Days” weren’t uniformly so.

Here’s a picture of the whole horse, if you’re curious:

A few marks and rubs, and a bit unstable (hence the crutch) but definitely a keeper.

Dubious Ideas, Some Revisited

Made my last purchases of the year yesterday; I walked into the local Salvation Army looking for boots, gloves and scarves, and walked out with a Stormy body, a Bay Running Foal body, and an RCMP-licensed Plush Horse that Vita desperately wanted to steal.

(I guess since a couple of her toys from XMAS are still on my "operating table", she thought he was fair game.)

The newest additions to the body box have made me think about a BreyerFest idea I’ve had knocking around my head for a few years now: a Homely Horse Challenge. I’d pick a common and usually unwanted body box filler - like the Running Foal, or the Grazing Mare - and challenge hobbyists to do something creative with it. Realistic, Fantasy, Decorator, doesn’t matter, just as long as it’s still recognizable as that mold. (No melting it into an armature or using just select pieces.)

Alas, sponsoring something like that would involve display space. And prizes. And time to judge things. So, it’s probably not a workable idea right now. I’d definitely love to do it someday, if only to get more hobbyists thinking "inside" the body box, so to speak. You don’t have to start with Pretty or Interesting to end up with Pretty or Interesting.

Speaking of BreyerFest, Reeves put up the first info on 2014’s event - basically a teaser telling us that tickets and more information will be up soon. The only other stuff worth noting at this point is that there are going to be special commemorative programs and other "pre-event" merchandise available to advance ticketholders.

http://www.breyerhorses.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=5558

They also mention that the applications for everything will be made available at the same time, including the one for volunteering, if you’re interested.

Since I have to work extra early tomorrow (yes, I know), I wanted to reiterate quickly one more point before I bid the year, the night and the post adieu. Dubious Rare Glossies are dubious.

This time the model in question is a Captain - the Special Run Charcoal Clydesdale Foal made as Raffle piece for the Touring Events, back when Reeves still did such a thing. There were ten pieces made, I believe.

Anyway, there’s one on eBay that looks and sounds … questionable. Especially since it appears to have significant damage to the finish, and not the kind that usually happens to a Factory Gloss Charcoal finish.

I’ve seen lots and lots of models; I can’t say that I’ve seen everything, but I’ve seen more than most. I have seen true Factory Gloss paint jobs with runs, drips, variable thickness in the gloss, fingerprints and the like.

These are the exception, however, not the rule. My tendency is to question questionable Glosses unless I’m able to see them in person, first. That’s just not possible in this case, so bidding on it is not even an issue for me.

(Not that it would be, anyway. Still saving up for that new-ish car…)

A Few Flakes

One of the items I picked up this past Sunday was a passable Black Bucking Bronco. He was nothing special - a later piece with some paint skips and flaws. He was cheap, he needed rescuing, and I harbor a strong fondness for the mold, simple as that. (So strong a fondness that once upon a time, when the prospect was presented to me, I asked for a test color Wedgewood Blue Bucking Bronco. I didn’t get it, though: it’s another one of My Long Stories.)

As I was cleaning him up, some of his paint flaked off. Since he was already in not-collectible shape, it wasn’t a big deal. Some black paint jobs from the 1970s have a tendency to do that; I tend to chalk it up as either the consequence of poor prepping and cleaning, or the heavy-handed application of the paint, both common occurrences back then. I wouldn’t rule out the possibility of a bad batch of paint, too.

He is genuinely OF - fake black paint jobs used to be as common as fake gloss jobs are now, but there was nothing here to indicate anything amiss. No weirdness going on over or under the paint. Just bad paint, period.

I’ve seen enough model horses in my time that I hesitate to dismiss anything except the most obvious of fakes, as fakes, especially if the only evidence I have is a low resolution JPEG on the Internet. I’ve seen genuine OF models with flaked paint, handpainted details, acetone touchups, bad trim jobs, smudges, drips and fingerprints - all the usual giveaways of fakeness. My SR Solid Black Mustang has a gigantic drip, and I bought him straight off the Bentley Sales Discontinued List!


(He was one of the last ones they had, so I couldn’t get a replacement. I prefer to think of it as a beauty mark.)

Then there’s this little beauty on eBay. Warning: I’d put down any drink you have in hand before clicking on the link:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Ultra-Rare-Breyer-Never-Seen-Before-Factory-Error-/250691052996?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3a5e59e5c4

I’d so bid on him if I wasn’t totally broke, or knew others would be totally gunning for him. The story that he came from the factory that way? In light of what I’ve seen, totally possible. (And in the likely event it isn't true - look at him, man! His paint finish is near mint!)

It wasn’t the runs, drips and errors seen on some of the models involved in the (still ongoing) Gloss Nokota business that made them dubious in my eyes. I’ve seen those kinds of flaws on genuine OF models, and it’s not the "tell" everyone thinks it is. I’ve gotten a lot of good models by taking long second looks.

A greater indicator of fakeness is the behavior of the seller involved. If it looks like, walks like, and smells like a con job, it’s a con job. After all that’s happened, the minor involved in that deal still has Internet access and is still attempting to wheel and deal. Whether the models involved are real or were somehow legitimately obtained is irrelevant.

The fact that some hobbyists are still debating whether or not she’s even worth dealing with is the strangest, saddest part. Is the prospect of a Gloss that no one else has or has even heard of so tempting that some hobbyists are willing to throw common sense out the window?

If any good comes out of all of this, it’ll be to cool off the overheated Gloss market, and maybe - just maybe - have Reeves reconsider the whole Glossy Prize Model idea in the first place. While it’s mostly hobbyists to blame in this whole mess, Reeves really ought to be stepping up to the plate - to make their Glosses a little less easy to fake, at the very least. (A decal, signature or numbering?)

I Hate My Teef!

Don’t be alarmed if you see me listing a lot of items for sale on MH$P in the next few days; I have a rather large dental bill coming due soon, and while I can pay it, I’d rather not pull money from the savings account to do it.

But I’m not selling the Glossy All Glory. Selling it would just about cover the cost of the bill, free and clear, but that’s not something I’m even going to contemplate. I don’t enter contests like that for the money. I do it for the satisfaction of accomplishing something. Period. The money will just have to come from somewhere else.

That somewhere else is… my BreyerFest leftovers. Not a lot of excitement there - some nice pieces, but nothing that’ll generate a lot of cash quickly. One good Chalky, some decent reference material leftovers, a few okay bodies, some TRU Specials and not very recent regular runs. Sigh. Maybe I’ll get lucky at the flea market this weekend. (Yeah, that’s it, let’s think positive!)

Actually, I don’t mind dwelling in the "bottom" of the OF Breyer market. There’s a whole lot less chance for fraud there. Sure, I’ve had my share of scammers - like the lady who faked a near-death experience to get out of paying for a measly $17 horse on eBay - but nothing that’s risen to the level of out-and-out grifting. Which I think might have been going on with that whole Glossy Prize Nokota nonsense being discussed on Blab recently.

The thread, if you want to read it: Glossy Nokota Transaction Gone Bad

And if you can't or don’t want to read it, the summary: very young girl with obvious limited knowledge of the hobby and of Glossy Prize Models attempted to scam several hobbyists, simultaneously, with both real Glosses she scammed from other hobbyists, and with Fakes. Possibly in collusion with her father, whose attempts at recompense may or may not have been intentionally ill-worded.

Every once and a while I’m going to "get lucky" and find something pretty sweet that I can make a lot of moolah on, but the lower end of the market is my bread and butter. Five dollars here, twenty dollars there: it doesn’t seem like much, but I make it up in volume. I did pretty well at BreyerFest this year with my sales - the best sales in several years, in fact - and I don’t think I sold any individual item for more than 50 dollars. I managed to cover most of my expenses, and if it wasn’t for my dental issues, the remainder of those expenses would have been paid off by next month.

While I’d like to get as much money as I can for whatever I find in the secondary market, I’d rather just take a smaller cut and rotate the stock out. Nothing irritates me more than seeing some of the same horses listed over and over on eBay or MH$P. The word "shopworn" comes to mind: not the physical damage done to merchandise while it sits on the shelf unsold, but to the perception of the item in the marketplace. Some shoppers may start getting the impression that there must be something wrong with it if it hasn’t sold yet - above and beyond the price, which is the usual reason a good model doesn’t sell in a timely manner.

I’d rather take a smaller profit or sell it at a loss. If someone else wants to try and get the rest of the value out of it, they can be my guest.

On a more personal note, I’d like to note the passing of one of our "part-time" kitties. His "house name" was Jasmine, but we called him Sumo, for rather obvious reasons:


Teeny head, big body! (With an adorable, tiny kitten voice to match.) He and his little brother Hoover technically lived next door with the neighbors, but spent so much time in our yard - either hanging out on the porch, or cruising for vermin in the garden - that we always referred to them as our "part-time" cats. (Our neighborhood is fairly secluded with low traffic, but they never ventured very far. There was no need: the squirrels and chipmunks were fat and plentiful.)

He was the most lovable cat in the history of cats. If you were outside for more than five minutes, you’d be greeted with either a vigorous leg rub or a head butt that would just about knock you over from the 20 pounds of weight behind it.

I had been so wrapped up in my own issues that I hadn’t noticed the lack of recent personal appearances, and the neighbors hadn’t been super social lately. I’d seen Hoover sunning himself on the driveway, and just assumed all was well. I knew he had been getting up in years - 15 or 16 years old or so - and was not as nimble as he once was, and just assumed for those reasons that he had been made a permanent indoor kitty.

Goodbye, my happy Sumo. May the squirrels and chipmunks be fatter and even more plentiful in the afterlife.