Q: Can you identify this mark? It is on the bottom of a 4 1/4-inch flow blue ironstone pot. A: This is a fake British Royal coat of arms mark. Manufacturers in England, the United States, and other countries used fake coat of arms marks to make their pottery seem older or more valuable. This "Victoria" mark was used on many new pieces of ironstone about twenty years ago. One clue to the fake: the mark is much too large for a small pot base.
You can update your old set of tiny 1930s painted metal figures that make Christmas scenes on a tabletop or mantel. The original figures by Barclay were dressed in 19th-century costumes. In the 1940s, more figures were made in contemporary costumes. These figures have been made again this year using the 1940s molds. It's easy to spot the repros if you are a collector of old ones. The new figures are solid; originals were hollow.
Do not buy old coins without knowing the dealer or source. Coin World newspaper reports that over a million counterfeit coins made in China in recent years have sold as rarities at high prices. It is not illegal to make a fake U.S. coin in China, but U.S. law requires that the word "copy" be stamped on the coin. The rule has been ignored. Gold and lesser coins are being made.
A Swiss author, Henri Stierlin, says the famous bust of Queen Nefertiti is a 1912 fake. He says it was ordered by the archaeologist who supposedly discovered the treasure to test the colors of ancient pigments. The bust was said to be found during excavations at the old settlement of Amarna, 90 miles south of Cairo. It was later transported to Germany, where it was admired by a visiting Prussian prince when he saw it in 1912. Rather than embarrass the prince by telling him the bust was not ancient, the archaeologist (according to Steirlin) did not explain its history. The bust was later given to a Berlin museum and has been considered a great treasure. It will soon be displayed in a special newly built room. Stierlin says no archaeologists at the dig ever mentioned the bust, her deliberate lack of a left eye would have been considered an insult in ancient Eygpt, her shoulders were shaped differently than those on busts by Egyptian artists, and her facial features are based on twentieth-century ideas of beauty rather than on those of ancient Egypt. I always thought Queen Nefertiti looked amazingly modern, with a spectacular long neck and high cheekbones. Has anyone else noticed that in proper makeup Audrey Hepburn could look like her sister? Scientific tests haven't helped much in dating the bust because the stone is covered with plaster and the pigments are really 3,400 years old. To make the puzzle more complicated, since 1923 the Egyptian government has demanded the return of the bust, which it claims was smuggled out of the country.
