Page 92 - Chinese SIlver By Adrien Von Ferscht

The World of Fake Chinese Export Silver

“Buddy are you authorised to sell Apple?” The figure on the left of the cartoon asks, to
which the figure on the right replies “Authorised?”. I should quantify this by stating that
Chinese Police have discovered some 22 fake Apple stores in China!

While this pretty well sums it up, Chinese Export Silver has only recently come under
attack by manufacturers of deliberate fakes, having escaped decades of a virtually fake-
free zone.

Obviously, the world of fakery is always an ongoing situation, with fakes probably
becoming increasingly more “sophisticated”. Generally fake Chinese Export Silver is
obvious to those who have a reasonable knowledge of this silver category. Even so,
wishful thinking on the part of the collector sometimes overrules what logic might be telling
us.

Categorising fakes into groups is a dangerous road to travel down, but from my own
observations fake Chinese Export Silver usually falls into two groups.

Certainly in the past 12 months there
seems to have been a rash of so-called
“19th century Chinese silver-gilt filigree”
items appearing at Western auction
houses and online auction sites.

The dome-lidded canister [left] is a
perfect example and the first thing to
note is that it is not filigree; it is
manufactured using machine-made

silver gilt mesh. The enamel work has
been applied, albeit not unskilfully in this
instance. It is not 19th century; it is not
Chinese Export Silver; it is not even an
antique. The rule of thumb is generally to
be found in the mark and in this case it is