Is it real…or isn’t it???
by Kathy Greer

   What started out as a perfectly ordinary morning, quickly revealed why every day in the antiques business is one of discovery - and not always pleasant. I was at the Burlwood Antique Center in Meredith, NH, taking pictures for their September shop ad. These are always great opportunities to browse thru the shop at leisure, as I typically arrive an hour and a half to two hours prior to the shop’s opening so there are no crowds of shoppers to hinder the shots. Normally, owners Mark Diette or Mary Di Maria, depending on who is stuck with me that morning, will head off in one direction, I in the other, looking for some of the great merchandise that had been brought into the shop by dealers the previous day.
   This particular morning, however, Mark greeted me with, “I’ve got something to show you.” He handed me the small framed Sawyer pictured and said, “It’s a fake.” 
   Now, I’ll be honest… I must have looked it over for five minutes or more before I finally realized why it was a fake. Mark explained that they had discovered three such fakes in three different booths from three different dealers. That discovery meant, of course, that someone (or ones) was pumping fake Sawyers into the antiques market. I groaned… all I could think of was the last time we broke one of these stories… that time, about six or seven years ago, it was Watt pottery… and there were some shop owners and dealers who didn’t speak to me for a year - or more!
    Be that as it may, my job as the publisher of the Gavel is to provide our readers with timely, accurate news on what is happening in the antiques and collectibles world. I always hate it when this kind of “news” hits the stands, as both dealers and collectors get hurt. But we didn’t create these fake Sawyers - the real perpetrator unfortunately remains unidentified as we go to press… but whoever they are, it is “they” who have created this misfortune on others. All we can do is warn future buyers and sellers to be careful.
   So why is the Sawyer pictured on the front page of this issue a fake? Because it appears that it was created on a laser printer… albeit, a good laser printer! The colors were crisp, the matting looked right, the back had the right “old” paper and the triangular Sawyer label I’d expect to find… and it was in a period frame. So how could someone tell it was a fake? Well, we’ve consulted with all the top Sawyer experts for this article, and will explain more… but what tipped me off, was that when you looked at the “hand-colored photo” from the side, ie. as though looking into the edge of the frame, you realize there is no matting under the glass… the image is printed on the same piece of paper as the matt… all one sheet, instead of being “tipped” in at the top as Sawyer’s normally were. Interestingly, the “image” which must have been scanned in with the original matting, is quite good, and a faint dark line at the top of the image gives the illusion of “depth” as one would expect with a Sawyer. And yes, it’s signed.
   Mark Diette expressed his opinion about “fakes” in the marketplace in general, one we share. “We are very concerned about this,” he said “and want the public to know what to look for. Every time fakes hit the collectibles and antiques market, we lose collectors because they feel that they cannot trust what they are buying. The faster collectors and dealers can recognize fakes, the faster we can preserve the market integrity.”

What we know so far, he added, was:

1. The picture, under simple hand magnification or under a jeweler’s loupe, shows that it is made up of “dots”. These are not hand-colored photos.
2. There is no paper mat. The typical Sawyer mat is a paper mat and is very thin and not quickly noticeable, but in these fakes, the picture & the mat were photocopied or laser printed onto one piece of paper.
3. There are odd shadow lines where the mat would meet the picture. If you look carefully, you will see that the shadow line is not consistent all the way around the picture. In the Old Man pictured on our front page, there is a line at the top of the “photo” but no line around the other three sides.
4. The backing paper may or may not mean anything. We always encourage our customers to have vintage artwork brought to a specialist in archival restoration and preservation. Many Sawyers have been reframed in the original frames, but on acid free backing to prevent age spots on the picture and mat. On one of the fakes that we saw, there was a new backing; on another there was a “vintage” looking backing with a Sawyer label. Not sure if either of these were reproduction backs or if they too, had been copied to look old.
    Next I spoke with Carol Begley Gray, author of the two Sawyer reference books “The History of The Sawyer Pictures” and “The Hand-Painted Photographs of Charles Henry Sawyer”, which she co-authored with attorney John Peters and Michael Ivankovich, the guru of hand-painted photography.
   Carol said she had not seen one of the laser printed fakes, but was aware of lithographed copies on the market. She said she also had recently seen a Sawyer label which was not “right”, adding that the shape of the label was not a shape used by the Sawyer studio in Concord, NH. In addition, she mentioned that
   In “The Hand-Painted Photographs of Charles Henry Sawyer”, Carol pointed out on page 26 in a section on “Detecting Fakes”, that “even the pro’s can sometimes be fooled”. Still, there are ways to protect yourself. Among them, she points out, “Under a magnifying glass, can paint strokes and color sections be delineated? Originals will show these strokes. Do dot or wave matrices appear? If they do, it is a lithograph, i.e., a copy. Look for paint strokes, as today’s photocopy machines make excellent color photocopies.” In addition, “Black-light the picture. This can be done even when the image is framed and under glass. If it’s fake, it will glow (fluoresce), especially the whites.”
   Carol laughed as she said, “Well I was right in that section…even the best get caught.” She explained that she’d purchased a Sawyer off an eBay auction and “I know it’s new.”  She repeated what she’d written in her book: “Buy from a reputable dealer, someone knowledgeable about Charles Sawyer and his work, and make sure the dealer or shop will give you a full refund if you determine the image is not an original, or has been altered.”
    Less than twenty-four hours before we went to press, auctioneer Michael Ivankovich reiterated Carol’s concerns and said while he’d not seen one of the fake laser printed Sawyers, he had been burnt on a similarly produced Wallace Nutting at one of the week-long shows at Brimfield in May. “I was in a booth and the guy had it for $25 and I offered $20 and he sold it to me and in my bag it went. The shows are hectic and I didn’t really look at it.” Mike explained it was quite a while later before he happened upon the bag of Brimfield goodies and realized his $20 treasure was trash.
    He had an interesting story about one of his recent auctions. In among the hundreds of hand-colored photographs being offered that day was one fake, put there deliberately by Michael. On the back of the framed “fake” was a tag, which read something to the effect, “This picture is a fake. If you’re reading this, put it down quietly and don’t tell anyone.” At the beginning of his auction, Michael asked the crowd how many people had read the note on the back of lot #…. Not ONE person raised their hand…so much for preview! He pointed out, “These fakes don’t hurt my business. Once they [the fakes] get found out, people stop buying them. My auctions are guaranteed, not like eBay where they are not. That’s why the prices on eBay have dropped by half in the past year or so.”
   We discussed why someone would bother to “fake” such “common” lower-end Sawyers and Nuttings. It seemed like a lot of work to me, for average merchandise. I mean, how much could you really make?
   Mike’s insight was fascinating. He pointed out that if the “fakes” were $500 Sawyers or Nuttings, potential buyers would be much more careful in their examination of the merchandise before they bought it. No doubt, dealers would “loupe” the photo as well as black-light it and discover the deception. He agreed the most likely source for the current “fakes” on the market was thru auction, where an unsuspecting local auctioneer was taking in hundreds of consignments a week. “They don’t have time to examine every piece,” Michael said, adding, “The vast majority of auctioneers are honest, hard-working folks. But they aren’t specialists. They often can only go by what the consignor tells them.”
    Shortly after this discussion I was chatting with auctioneer George Foster, who often handles Sawyer material. George explained he had not seen any of the fakes at his sales, and thanked me for the “heads up”. My cell phone went off and when I answered, it turned out it was Michael Ivankovich again. “You aren’t going to believe this, but like five minutes after we spoke, one of my regular consignors comes in and he has like 40 photos and hands one to me, and said he didn’t think it was right.”
  Mike laughed. “It’s an Old Man of the Mountain. I think it’s just like the one you have. It’s about 5”x7”, with light brown matt. You’re right. It looks good at first glance.” Michael said he of course, louped it first and discovered “non-symmetrical patches of dots”. He questioned whether these were laser printed or perhaps lithographed. “With a 4-color process [Ed. note: like we use to print the Gavel], you will get symmetrical dots under an eye loupe.”
   Regardless of how they are being produced, they are fakes. “The signature is printed,” he added, “not original… while the lines in the signature don’t have dots, they are broken up. That’s a sure sign it’s not original.”
    He also remarked that the “ink” used in the triangular “Sawyer” label on the back of the fake he had was “black”. Authentic Sawyer labels had “dark brown ink”. Where was this “fake” purchased, considering that it had shown up as a potential consignment in Doylestown, PA? Michael said the dealer told him he purchased it at one of the week-long shows during the September Brimfield.
    So with less than eight hours to go before the presses rolled, I discovered there was no food in my house!
   On the way to Shaw’s, my cell phone rang again. It was attorney John Peters calling from Michigan. Don’t ask what my cell phone bill is like each month!!! But without it, it would be impossible to put together an article like this in such short notice… sort of like a double-edged sword.
    As an attorney specializing in copyright law, among other things, John had some interesting insight into the question at hand. If someone has a Sawyer print (note the keyword here is print, not hand-color photo), and they mark it for sale as a “Sawyer print”, that is perfectly legal, he said. But, “put a fake label on the back” and that is “fraud”, John added. He recommended black-lighting everything as the ultimate test of purity. He explained that in the mid-1950s, optical brighteners were added to paper. That is why they fluoresce. In other words, basically all paper of any kind (copy machine, laser, etc.) produced from the mid-50s on will glow when black-lighted. Remember the Tide commercials “Whiter than white” ? that’s because they added optical brighteners to the detergent about the same time.
    “The little handheld black-lights may not be strong enough,” said John, adding that he hadn’t personally had any problems with them. Still, he recommends one with at least an 18” tube, something having to do with wavelengths which I didn’t write down, having limited writing material in my van at Shaw’s. “It’s basically the poor man’s tool,” John explained, talking about the black-light -- not my van… although that qualifies as well.

Repro Alert!

  In our ongoing effort to keep our readers aware of any reproductions or fakes entering the antiques & collectibles market, we suggest subscribing to the ACRN -(515) 274-5886 Central time Mon-Fri, 9am-5pm; see some of this great monthly newsletter online at http://www.repronews.com
 You can even buy loupes, blacklights, learn how to test diamonds and other jewelry from the ACRN website.
  Another source of repro news is Kovels newsletter, www.kovels.com 1-800-829-9158. In the August, 2003 issue, there was a warning on high-end costume jewelry fakes of Trifari, Hobe, Coro Craft and Eisenberg. See www.rhinestonerainbow.com
   We can also recommend the following website:
www.antique-central.com/repronews.html
  To read about the Federal Hobby Protection Act:
www.collectors.org/eNews_Dealers/News.asp