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Discover Mid-America — May 2006
At online auctions, all that glitters is not vintage
For years, the Internet auction has been hyped as a retail Nirvana. eBay has capitalized on that reputation with its "IT" commercials that began airing just before and during the 2006 Olympics: "Whatever IT is, you can get it on eBay."
But counterfeit collectibles on eBay have, if not tarnished the online auction's reputation, at least brought some critical perspective to bear upon it.
The field of autographed sports and celebrity memorabilia, for instance, is rife with forgeries, many of them dispersed through online auction. So pervasive has the problem of fake memorabilia become that an entire business of third-party authentication has grown up around it.
Elsewhere, no less a brand name in the antiques and collectibles field than the illustrious Tiffany Company has decided to go head-to-head with eBay. In a direct challenge to eBay's "only a venue" mantra, the suit charges that eBay actually facilitates the sale of counterfeit Tiffany products. That suit is being watched with interest by legal beagles and consumers alike because a victory by Tiffany, with its highbrow reputation and presumably deep pockets, could force revolutionary changes in the online auction business.
Close upon the heels of the Tiffany story came media news that a ring of counterfeiters in New Jersey has been using eBay to hawk bogus paste and baubles as vintage Weiss costume jewelry. Legitimate dealers who specialize in the latter complain that lax enforcement of eBay's anti-fraud policies has created profound distrust in the market, severely affecting the price and demand for vintage items.
This latter is an interesting observation because it challenges conventional wisdom about why online auctions have such a deflating impact on secondary market prices. Common wisdom has assumed that the online auction lowers prices by global expansion of the market, thereby increasing supply of items formerly considered scarce. Arguably, though, prices are down across the middle of the trade for the less benign reason that people can no longer trust what they're buying — nor who's selling it to them.
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Weiss and other famous-names in vintage costume jewelry are hot commodities on the collectibles market, and that's just the sort of honey that attracts counterfeiters. This bracelet of emerald green rhinestones and faux green-striated agate is marked WEISS on the clasp and is "of the maker." Most of the fake Weiss being sold on eBay consists of brooches. The easiest way to tell a Weiss fake, by the way, is to look at the back. Modern costume jewelry, including fakes attributed to famous makers, will have a textured back; real items will generally have flat, smooth backs. (photo by the author.) |
eBay's much publicized "safety features" primarily involve the promise of post-swindle intervention - a sort of locking-the-barn-door-after-the-horse-has-bolted approach to fraud protection. Moreover, buyers frequently complain about the difficulty of getting these safety features to work as advertised. The site, with its multiple millions of items on sale at any given time, has apparently become too big either to adequately police the behavior of individual sellers or to consistently follow up on buyer complaints.
Dealers with on-the-ground businesses are also vulnerable to being fleeced at eBay auction, given the site's reputation in the trade as a source of cheap merchandise for resale. Unless they're experts in a given field, dealers who regularly purchase online for resale may themselves be buying and reselling counterfeit merchandise, thereby contributing — however unwittingly or unwillingly — to the dissemination of fakes.
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Antique and vintage bird decoys is a field where stellar prices attract fakes and repros. Very early in my education as a trade consumer, I purchased this wooden goose (top view) as a decorative accent for my home. The honest seller was kind enough to inform me before I bought it that it was not old but merely "stressed" to look that way. (photo by the author.) |
Pending the results of the Tiffany suit or some other epic battle, the online auction will continue to be one of the wilder ranges in the Wild Frontier of the Internet. It appears consumers are on their own in protecting themselves, but, fortunately, no one's bereft of the rules that common sense supplies:
1. Set a bidding cap for individual items and stick to it. That advice is easier given than followed when the item that comes up is one you really want. Make your maximum bid low enough that you could afford to lose the money if the item comes up damaged or otherwise "wrong." If you do end up with a bad buy, it'll hurt a lot less if you paid 20 bucks for it than if you let yourself get bid up to a hundred.
2. Read seller feedback. Most online auction crooks aren't very bright: They leave a pretty clear electronic trail. I recently got an email from a collector lamenting bitterly about an item she'd purchased on eBay that turned out to be an undeclared "second" of Lladrü, an expensive Spanish porcelain but considerably less valuable when the item is of second quality. Had the buyer bothered to read the seller's negative feedback, she'd have seen a clearly established pattern of complaints about undeclared seconds.
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The sale of seconds by fine porcelain manufacturers is a venerable tradition that includes Meissen, Royal Copenhagen, Lladrü and many other reputable names. Even though I know better, I didn't look carefully enough before I bought a matched pair of miniature Royal Copenhagen plates and missed that manual vertical hatch mark across the "waves" (right under the lower left corner of the factory sticker). Although I purchased these on the ground and not over the Internet, online auctions have also become a major conduit for the circulation of seconds in high-end 20th century porcelain. (photo by the author) |
3. Read auction descriptions carefully, paying particular attention to what the seller doesn't say. If the item is alleged to be marked, make sure the auction posting has a clear picture of said mark — and be sure that the outline of the base, or wherever else the mark is allegedly located, is consistent with the shape of the item being auctioned. Although most online auction crooks aren't very smart, a few of them are at least cagey. I've seen a seller use the picture of a good logo from the bottom of some other piece — which means the item being auctioned could be marked entirely otherwise or not at all.
A few years ago, there was an eBay scam in which people bid on three-dimensional items and received photocopy pictures of them instead. The seller's defense? He never said the item pictured was the item up for bid. Such egregious scammers don't last long, even online, but a critical reading of auction descriptions can help insulate you from being among the victims of the next "clever" swindler.
4. Ask questions before you bid. If the item doesn't mention condition, email and ask. Some sellers deliberately omit mention of condition problems, hoping bidders won't notice; others may inadvertently omit condition description on a perfectly good item. Whatever your question, avoid sellers who respond with "an attitude" or whose answers fancy-dance around your questions.
5. Avoid buying categories known to pose special risk. Anyone buying from eBay in high-risk categories had best be prepared to end up with junk posing as vintage or antique. To name but a few of these categories, few knowledgeable buyers would risk eBay as a regular source of celebrity memorabilia, vintage jewelry, antique Asian porcelain or Tiffany glass and silver.
Peggy Whiteneck is a writer and collector living in East Randolph, VT. If you would like to suggest a topic she can address in her column, email her at allwrite@sover.net.
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