Sunday, April 17, 2011

Essential: Validating an Authentic Piece (or dismissing a FAKE!)

Hi everyone! I just scanned my last post and oh my goodness, March 30th? That's no good. I have however been hard at work on my Etsy shop. I would like to talk about a few goodies I found while treasure hunting this weekend. First of all, I just want to briefly mention this awesome cake pan I lucked into.


The beautiful booty kicking comic star in a cake! I was so happy to find her at the estate sale of a cake maker.

Yesterday, I wandered into an amazing antique shop. The old man running it had been running it for years and it was HUGE, rooms and rooms full of stuff. I asked him if he sold anything online and he said, "I won't sell anything to anyone that can't step into my shop and have a conversation with me. I'd rather keep it!" Fair enough... antique shop owner/borderline hoarder perhaps? Either way, he had some great items and he knew his stuff. His crystal, depression glass, etc. seemed to be priced accordingly, if not a little high on some things. I wandered into a back room that he called his "garage sale" room. No taxes and garage sale like items. I dug through them a little bit and stumbled across this beautiful pottery bowl.




I'm not a pottery expert or even a pottery collector. I just thought this was a cheap, cool looking bowl and the glaze (that you can't see very well in the photo) is a very pretty rainbow like glaze. When I got home and started doing some Google "research" I was surprised to find that Fulper Pottery is highly collectible and some of it sells for thousands, wow! Granted, from what I've seen it is the vases and pretty stuff that is more valuable. So I've got this awesome little pot, that through my research I've found it is identified as a Fire-proof Cookware casserole. 


I don't have the lid to mine (darn it!) Anyhow, I also discover through Internet searches that there are plenty of Fulper fakes out there. From what I have learned, I know that this particular Fulper piece has a raised Fulper incised racetrack mark, which is the marking used by the company from 1916-1922. So right now, I'm trying to figure out "Is it real?" "Is it fake?" "How do I find out? Has anyone else had this issue with any of their collectables?

If it does turn out to be a fake... I've still got Wonder Woman right?



1 comment:

  1. Great blog post! I love the Wonder Woman cakepan. That's so cool you found such neat pieces. Good luck figuring out if the casserole is fake.

    ReplyDelete