Suspicious RLalique-R Lalique-Rene Lalique Auctions

Renaissance Antiques of Davenport Iowa, in the person of owner Naim Bouchareb, a regular seller on Ebay under the Ebay screen name Dounial, sells a lot of R Lalique items online. Some of these listings raise serious questions. We have been motivated to write about this R Lalique Seller for a variety of reasons including complaints and negative comments that have come in thru and because of the website, and also a recent couple of listings that squarely highlight the questions.

We have previously written in these pages, that if you are going to purchase from a dealer, that it is extremely important that your dealer be honest and competent. It’s also important that you are armed with the most information possible, which is the best defense against regrets and the various dark arts practiced throughout any collecting field.

Here we have what in our opinion is as fake a signature as can be found. The signature resides on a piece sold on Ebay by Renaissance Antiques. The piece in the Ebay Listing sports the signature on the underside of the base as shown above. This item has graced the pages of the R Lalique Police Report Section for some time.

Stranger than the signature, is its location on the underside of the base. Note in the photo the dark little pads under the piece and a signature that appears in the photo to be raised out of the glass. Of course, if you put a raised signature on the underside of a piece that has a flat bottom:

A - The signature will touch the surface of whatever it’s sitting on!

B - The piece will not sit level due to the signature being elevated from the rest of the base!

C - And the signature itself will be scraped up and maybe even off, and worn totally over time.

And there you have the little green pads, apparently to protect the signature and level the piece.

How many pieces do you have of authentic R Lalique, where the signature is raised on the flat part of the underside; an underside that by design comes in direct contact with the surface the piece is sitting on? Seriously, whoever put the signature on this piece wasn’t thinking it through, wasn’t familiar with R Lalique, or just didn’t care. Or there is a fourth possibility!

Many buyers of glass assume that a molded signature is a mark of authenticity. We have repeatedly stressed on RLalique.com that you should never buy a signature; that the signature does not authenticate the piece. In fact, the piece must authenticate the signature. In the example at hand, whether this piece is a post war Cristal Lalique reproduction or a Czech copy, the addition of the molded signature would typically be intended to give an assurance of authenticity of the piece being an original work of Rene Lalique.

But these “molded” signatures can be faked; with not too much more work than scratching in a phony signature with a sharp object. In simple terms, the forger protects with a stencil of some kind, the outline of the desired signature, and then using acid, cuts back everything else on the underside of the base a millimeter or two, leaving a raised “molded” signature that was not cut away with the acid. See Fake Lalique Signatures for other examples similar to the signature on this Coq Nain.

So here we have a regular seller of R Lalique pieces selling a piece that does not even appear right at first glance. What does the R Lalique Dealer, this regular seller of R Lalique, this Antiques Dealer, this Specialist have to say about this piece in his ad?

“AMAZING! R. LALIQUE FRANCE “COQ NAIN” CLEAR/FROSTED” and “Condition: very good condition, small chip on the base rim”

Who is the likely buyer of this piece? A beginning or novice collector that doesn’t know. Someone from the very group of collectors from which long term serious collectors emerge, assuming they don’t have the kinds of regrets to sour them on the entire collecting field that might be caused by a signature like the one on this piece.

The time spent to read up a little on Faked Lalique works and the related subjects covered by that link, may save you many regrets. And of course a little independent Lalique Consulting can go a long way toward avoiding bad experiences.

And if you liked the Coq Nain, you’ll like this second Ebay listing just as well. A bit of a play on an old Wendy’s**** advertising slogan “Where’s the Beef?”, we are inclined to ask Renaissance Antiques, Where’s the Rim? Oh yea …. “Excellent condition” so says the seller.

Compare the Dounial Ebay Domremy Vase pictured here with the photo of the Rene Lalique Domremy Vase below that came up for auction last year.

Renaissance Antiques thru their Ebay screen name Dounial is also featured on the website TiffanyFakes.com! Hardly surprising.

Is Dounial, Mr. Naim Bouchareb, Renaissance Antiques, guilty of nothing more than ignorance? Is it omission or commission? Responsibility or irresponsibility? Regardless, the result is the same for a buyer that relies on “Amazing!” and “very good condition” and bizarre “molded” signatures blazoned across the bottom of car mascots or paperweights.

And this is why, if you are buying from a dealer, that having a competent and honest dealer (along with getting independent advice concerning your purchases) is so important. If you know a fair amount about R Lalique, and if you are careful, and if you purchase from many sources at auctions, online, thru individuals, etc., you may make a few mistakes and have a couple of regrets. But if you are buying regularly from the same dealer, a dealer that is not competent and honest, you may end up with many, many regrets. It is for this reason that we emphasized previously (see Lalique Bacchantes article) and reiterate here the great importance to you as a buyer, that if you are buying from a dealer, you should ensure that the dealer is honest and competent.

And how much did Renaissance Antiques make on the Coq Nain sale? They sold the piece for $399, a lot less even than the few pieces of silver you hear tell about.

*** Wendy’s was founded in Columbus, Ohio in 1969 by one of the great (and regretfully late) American Entrepreneurs, Dave Thomas. There is a persistent and widespread story going around that he named the restaurant chain after his daughter Wendy. But he didn’t have a daughter named Wendy! His daughter’s name was Melinda Lou. Of course at a young age she couldn’t pronounce her own name, and got the nickname Wendy, a name she could pronounce, which makes the whole story true enough. To think we’ve really been eating at Melinda Lou’s all this time.

EBay is a great marketplace for the works of Rene Lalique. Cool and rare objects appear out of the hinterlands and offer opportunities for collectors they would never have seen before. And just the sheer volume of daily trading of R. Lalique items creates liquidity in the market and contributes to the overall stability of the worldwide collecting field. It’s a great place to sell items with low transaction costs, and a great place to buy pieces as well.

But like all things, the story is usually not entirely one sided, and as regular visitors to RLalique.com are aware, many items are listed on Ebay under the R. Lalique banner, that are not always exactly what they seem.

The RLalique Police Page always has a “good” selection of various problematic Ebay auctions listed for anyone that wants to take the time to investigate before bidding on something. And we can’t leave this topic without mentioning of course, that we also do offer affordable Lalique Consulting for any purchase, not just on Ebay but for any auction item (or an entire auction) or private sale worldwide.

One Ebay item in particular was brought to our attention by several alert readers in recent days and it has graced the top of the RLalique Police listings since it first appeared online. The auction was purportedly for the Rene Lalique Vase Gros Scarabees: The Lalique Beetle Vase! The auction ended today, and while we were looking at the Ebay Item Page in feigned disbelief, the refrain from the old Eagles standard kept running thru our minds:

There’s gonna be a heartache tonight,
A heartache tonight, I know.
There’s gonna be a heartache tonight, I know.
Lord, I know.

What makes this listing so “great”, is the sheer laziness of the Ebay seller combined with the obvious warning signs. Here is a link to a saved/cached image version of the original 190426530971 listing online***, the “Grosses Scarabees Vase”. You can’t make these names up, they just appear! How did this become the “Grosses”? Simple, the seller copied that information directly from a previous online auction listing along with the exact same three photos in that previous listing!

The original seller of this vase last year, an auction house that regularly sells R. Lalique, made a mistake in their heading when they brought the vase to auction in June of 2009 and called it the “Grosses Scarabees Vase”. The current Ebay lister just copied out the info, correct, mistaken, no matter. See the original listing for yourself here: Grosses Vase.

And the three photos? Well, they are actually just one photo that was then given different effects (lighter, darker, highlights) to make it appear to be three different photos.

Rago reports that with buyers premium the vase sold last year for $8400. Then it appears on Ebay a year later, with an $800 starting price and no reserve! And the lucky winner gets it for only $2000! Oh, and FREE shipping too! That’s a really big expense for the seller that he’s throwing in :). How great is this?

Well, we already know how this story is going to end:

There’s gonna be a heartache tonight,
A heartache tonight, I know.
There’s gonna be a heartache tonight, I know.
Lord, I know.

***You may have to use the zoom function of your browser (or whatever program opens images for you) to get the cached image to expand in the window if it does not appear full size. After clicking on the link to the item, a new window will open with the cached image in it. On a Mac, just click on the image and see if that expands it. If not, press the apple key and click on the cached image in your browser window. On a PC, hold down the alt key while clicking on the cached image.

Fake Lalique is something that all collectors have to be on the lookout for. It’s something that is a problem to varying degrees in every collecting field. In the big scope of things, it’s much less of an issue with R Lalique than in many other areas of collecting, but it still is an issue to be on guard against.

Here is an Ebay listing that in a nutshell* is one of the most prevalent items passed off as the work of Rene Lalique. The stereotypical fake Sauterelles embodies not just ease of identifying fakes for a collector, but also the truth in the concept that “a little knowledge can be dangerous”**.

First, a link to the cached version of the Ebay listing: Ebay Item 140401627596. You may have to use the zoom function of your browser (or whatever program opens images for you) to get the cached image to expand in the window if it does not appear full size. After clicking on the link to the item, a new window will open with the cached image in it. On a Mac, just click on the image and see if that expands it. If not, press the apple key and click on the cached image in your browser window. On a PC, hold down the alt key while clicking on the cached image.. Fake as fake can be. This supposed Lalique Sauterelles Vase has all the elements. The too tall rim, the too thick rim, the crude finish, the bizarre color. And it has the added oomph of this claim “It was purchased at a Christies auction along with many other signed Lalique pieces.”

Likely, if you had this vase in hand, and you had handled thousands of pieces of R Lalique glass, you would know just from the feel when you picked it up that it’s a complete fake***. This is an easy one to spot no doubt.

But consider the danger of knowing about this piece and thinking you know-it-all about the fake Lalique Sauterelles. Because just when you think, “Oh, I can spot that coming a mile away!” the makers may adapt their tactics and go to plans B and C. So like everything else in life, when you learn about something, you have to think about not just what you do know, but what you don’t yet know.

Plan B: Take a vase like the blue/purple Ebay one, pick a more believable color, and then polish up (well, really down) the rim, and get it in a closer and less crude shape to authentic examples. With a better color and a better rim, “first glance” and “mile away” may not put you on alert! See the photo of the Amber Sauterelles Vase above.

Plan C: Start over, use a better, closer to reality glass and finish, and adjust your mold and finish to produce from the get-go**** a better looking product that more closely matches the authentic pieces in color, size, rim, and glass composition. See the photo of the Blue Sauterelles Vase below. Now, many collectors might not know the difference even after inspection if they had not handled sufficient amounts of Lalique glass, or did not take caution in examining the vase. Compare the Blue and Amber Sauterelles photos to the blue/purple one from the Ebay listing and see the improvement in technique between models.

While it is thought that these cruder and usually older fake Sauterelles Vases come from South America, the Plan C vases that we have seen have come from Europe! And of course, Plan B vases can come from anywhere from New York City to Buenos Aires.

So for the Ebay vase, what is one of the easiest copies to spot is also a lesson in what to think about once you have gained some knowledge. Not to bask in the glory of what you know, but to give some thought to what you don’t yet know!

As always, keep in mind that the knowledge or motive of the seller of one of these Fake Lalique items is almost totally irrelevant to you. Your concern is the piece and not the person. Don’t waste your time wondering too much about the seller. Spend your time wondering about the vase. This listing presents a great example of that. Here, the seller makes the Christies provenance representation. Even if they don’t have a receipt to prove it, even if Christies never sold a vase like this, the seller may have been told this by the person or place that they got the vase from. They might just be passing along what they believe to be true. Either way, who cares? The only issue for you as a collector is the authenticity of the vase and not the authenticity of the claims of the seller.

Also, many of these vases were not made with the intent to fool anyone. Someone may have copied the design because they liked it, not to sell it as something it is not. In the Ebay listing, the manufacturer of the vase did not sign it RLalique or whatever. It’s unsigned. So at least at that initial stage, there may have been no intent to deceive, just to copy! And today’s seller may believe everything written in the ad on Ebay. But again, your only concern is the piece in front of you, the here and now, and what you know to be the facts.

You’ll find links to all the information about Rene Lalique Fakes everywhere on RLalique.com in the Fake Lalique Section of the Rene Lalique Biography, including links to the Copies and Close Calls Section of the website where additional photos and information about Lalique Copies can be found including specific information on Fake Sauterelles Vases.

And if you need expert advice in your purchase decisions, take a look at the services offered at RLalique.com in the Lalique Expert Consulting Section of the website. Independent expert advice can and should pay huge dividends when making your purchase decisions. For typically a small percentage of what you are spending, it can prove invaluable in helping you buy with confidence and avoid regrets.

* “In a nutshell” is an old expression used by Shakespeare in the early 1600’s (”….O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell ……..” declares Hamlet) and by Pliny 1500 years before that (when he relates Cicero’s statement that the whole Iliad was written on a piece of parchment which might be put into a nutshell). It means a small space, or something small such as a concise explanation.

**”A little knowledge can be dangerous” - First used by Alexander Pope (1688 - 1744) in An Essay on Criticism, 1709: “A little learning is a dangerous thing; drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: there shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, and drinking largely sobers us again.”

*** A “complete fake”? This begs the question: What is the difference between a complete fake and a regular fake? The answer: You’ll know it when you see it.

**** Get-go or getgo is American expression, kind of a vernacular contraction without the apostrophe. It really just shortens up the phrase “get going” or the phrase “get ready, get set, go!”. It means the start or the beginning and is usually used with in the form “from the get-go”.

Rene Lalique Fake Jewelry Appears With Increasing Frequency: There are currently several different jewelry auctions online  falsely claiming to be the work of Rene Lalique. This is beginning to look like the start of a trend, there having been a fourth fake R Lalique jewelry auction which just ended recently with a reported sale price of $2000! The jewelry of Rene Lalique is not as well documented as his glass works. So we thought we would highlight some of this fake R Lalique jewellery (a hat tip for our British readers) in the hopes that unsuspecting buyers may be spared an expensive education! Below are the auction listing links (3 current, one ended), and of course, the four photos in this post, all of which are being marketed as period R Lalique jewelry; all of which are fakes. You gotta love the seller of several of these items: ALL SALES ARE FINAL. THERE ARE NO REFUNDS OR RETURNS AND PAYMENT IS DUE IMMEDIATELY”! Really? Or as an alert contributor to the R Lalique Police Section (where all four of these fake R Lalique items are listed) pointed out to us, the other seller says: “I Will Divide Up The Money Among My TREE Children!” Hmmmmmm. Those fans of Hill Street Blues know the old maxim well ……”Be Careful Out There!” Don’t want to fall out of your tree!

PS. Of course, over at the R Lalique Books Library, there are an amazing number of Rene Lalique reference books for R Lalique Jewelry, including the bible of R Lalique Jewelry: Rene Lalique Schmuck und Objects d’art 1890-1910 By Sigrid Barten which has over 1700 photos and is found in the Modern R Lalique Books Section, as well a good number of Rene Lalique jewelry exhibition books and catalogs, and R Lalique jewelry auction catalogues as well.

ANTIQUE-HAIR-COMB-HORN-BY-LALIQUE-18KT-GOLD-DIAMONDS Ebay Item 190298613347 ANTIQUE HAIR COMB HORN BY LALIQUE 18KT GOLD DIAMONDS

Ebay Item 200321633101 ANTIQUE HAIR COMB HORN BY LALIQUE WITH 14KT GOLD

ANTIQUE-HAIR-COMB-HORN-BY-LALIQUE-14KT-GOLD-DIAMONDS Ebay Item 200327852647 ANTIQUE HAIR COMB HORN BY LALIQUE 14KT GOLD DIAMONDS

LALIQUE-GOLD-PENDANT-1900-ART-NOUVEAU-UNIQUE Ebay Item 270369181854 LALIQUE GOLD PENDANT 1900 ART NOUVEAU UNIQUE

Who would have thought that several different bidders, including one rumored to be a regular buyer and seller of R Lalique items, would compete to run Ebay Item 110319076762 up to $713.47, PLUS the cost to ship from Paraguay? Talk about being “thrown for a loupe”! Seriously, we apparently have to do a better job of getting out the word that there is a place to go for information that may be helpful to purchasers of RLalique! This item was the subject of some comment in the Suspicious Online Auction Thread, and it was (and is) also listed in the RLalique Police Section. Tragic.

And here it is straight from the dictionary:

throw or knock for a loop: to astonish or upset: Her quitting the project really threw me for a loop.

A great day here at RLalique.com. Today we launch two new sections adding major new features for the entire RLalique community. First, the RLalique Police! The purpose of this section is to give users of our site a place to tell the community about suspicious RLalique items in online auctions, and to give everyone a chance to talk about the items, make comments and observations, and share their knowledge about the actual identity of the suspicious items. There are two parts to this new feature; the RLalique Police Blog Thread that is the place where you can leave a comment pointing to a suspicious listing, or comment on previous listings reported by other users. We will copy those listings to the new RLalique Police Section, which will simply have a list of suspicious RLalique items at auction reported by users in the RLalique Police Blog Thread. The point of the section is to sort out the actual suspicious listings from the blog comments for easy and fast reference by users concerned about particular items online that they might be considering. The RLalique Police Blog Thread is just below this announcement, and that thread is linked from the RLalique Police Section. This has been our most requested feature since the inception of RLalique.com and we have high hopes for users to have a chance to contribute to the greater pool of information for the entire RLalique community through the new RLalique Police Blog Thread and RLalique Police Section.

The second new feature is the RLalique Wanted Section, where users can list specific RLalique items they are looking to add to their collections. This should provide a way for active collectors to get the word out about items they want to find, and it’s also a great way for collectors that have a matching piece, to have a chance to make a sale to someone they know is looking for the item they have, at a reasonable commission rate, and where both parties’ identify is kept confidential. A Win-Win-Win situation.

Please take a minute to check out our new features. We hope you will participate in listing any RLalique items you are seriously looking for in the RLalique Wanted Section, and that you will take the time to point out suspicious RLalique online auction listings, and share whatever knowledge you have about these items as they appear.

Finally, we’ve added another row of picture links near the bottom of our Home Page, to link these two new sections directly from the graphics area of the Home Page. And we’ve added these additional links to all of the navigation bars throughout RLalique.com. We pride ourselves on the ease of use of RLalique.com, and we hope you find these additions and improvements to your liking. As we might have mentioned before, we know your time is valuable, and we appreciate the time you spend here with us at RLalique.com. We are working hard to ensure that your time is well spent and we appreciate any and every contribution you are willing to make to help improve the overall RLalique community.

This is our running thread on Suspicious RLalique Online Auctions brought to our attention by readers of RLalique.com. This is THE PLACE to post suspicious online listings by leaving a comment to this post. This thread is for items that are NOT RLalique, and we include in this thread online RLalique auctions where there is no actual RLalique item (the stolen photo auctions). We started this thread in response to reader requests. To submit a suspicious item, or comment about an item already listed in this thread or on the Suspicious RLalique Online Auction Page, leave your comment here. We’ll move new items on a regular basis from here to that web page. We welcome comments on items that have already been posted here, concerning all the various subjects surrounding a fake listing; from the actual identify of the item, to any patterns of deception or things that can be learned from a specific listing. If an item is a real RLalique item, and you have concerns about condition or quality, this is not the place to comment. For help with real RLalique items, please check out our RLalique Consulting Services Section. Two final notes: First, you have to register to comment, by clicking the register link on the sidebar of any blog page. Your name and email address (the two main things to register) do not appear in your comments when they are published. By taking the time to identify fake RLalique appearing in online auctions, and sharing your knowledge with the greater RLalique community, you help to strengthen the entire RLalique collecting field, and you may save a fellow enthusiast from a big headache. Finally, one common sense observation from our standpoint. Not all sellers of a suspicious item are bad people. For example, someone buys an item at an estate sale or antique shop, thinking it’s a great RLalique bargain, then goes home and lists it in an online auction, not knowing the facts. That’s a different story than the seller that adds an RLalique signature to a non RLalique piece to try and increase the value, or that knowingly passes along a fake. It’s often hard or impossible to know or guess at the truth of each circumstance. What matters most is the fact of the item; whether it’s RLalique or not. We look forward to your contributions.

Note: MOST COMMENTS OVER 45 DAYS OLD ARE DELETED AS THE ASSOCIATED ONLINE AUCTION LISTING OFTEN CANNOT BE ACCESSED AFTER THAT TIME!