Here's some interesting reading that arrived w/ my monthly online newsletter from the Kovels Antique group.. Change the names and items involved and you've got pretty much the same as what we're going through here in the car world!.
"...LOOK OUT FOR FAKES!
Restoration, embellishment and just plain fakes have been known in the world of collecting since ancient times. It is said that fake Greek coins tempted eager Roman collectors. High-end English and American shops are nervously waiting for more news about the latest major furniture-faking story. Did John Hobbs, a well-known high-priced English antiques dealer, really sell fake furniture as his restorer, Dennis Buggins, now claims? Buggins said he made pieces for Hobbs that he thought would be sold as new, but that Hobbs sold them as antiques--one table for as much as $2.4 million.
We are surprised that some of Hobbs' clients don't seem to care if a piece they bought is old or new. And even more surprising, the decorators who bought and sold the furniture evidently claimed no responsibility for authenticity. In the 19th century, fakers liked to re-carve round tilt-top tables into "wine-tasting" tables with added carved circles to outline the wine bottles. And it was acceptable to make an extra chair for a dining room set by using parts of an old chair and adding replica pieces. But these efforts were simple compared to the Hobbs-Buggins story. The supposed fakes were assembled from quality antiques with large, aged, wooden surfaces and pleasing shapes. One set of small tables from the Hobbs showroom is pictured in the New York Times. The tables were apparently made from two ends of a dining table and then embellished with antique cameos set in frames.
Many of Hobbs' expensive pieces seem to be fantasies, not copies, and many were sold with a fabricated written history of past ownership and workmen. Dealers, decorators and auction houses are now waiting to learn if lawsuits will result for any who handled the merchandise. A sad week for collectors. First a cloud over the merchandise sold by a top English dealer, then word that the crystal skulls Harrison Ford is seeking in his new Indiana Jones movie have been 19th-century fakes all along!..."
~ Pete