Imagine for a minute that you just saw on an auction site on the Internet  the very piece of  extremely desirable and rare vintage jewelry you have been dreaming of owning one day?

Perhaps you never saw this piece in person before, only on pictures in value guide books. But here it is now, and you figure that someone must want to part with theirs. After all, the manufacturers did make more than one piece so why shouldn't another one turn up? Especially for your benefit? You feel so lucky and you want it.

You bid and win the auction.

But when you receive the jewelry, it looks not quite right.

It's too new looking, the plating too shiny on the front, on the back too matte, or too dull, perhaps textured, or rough, and certainly not polished and with a gentle patina of age like original vintage pieces you have seen from this era and maker.

The pin stem may be too thin, and/or a bit too long, it surpasses the closing mechanism.

The stones are very bright and some of them appear slightly too big for the setting, you can see a bit of the foil. There may be other glaring differences such as poor enameling, and even a mark or signature style that does not conform with any previously recognized marks from that maker.

Did you buy a fake?

It's very likely.

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Studying vintage jewelry in pictures alone does not us experts make. Even a very good picture does not reveal all the little details that would confirm without a doubt that a piece of jewelry is original vintage.

But there is more to telling a fake than the visible details. It's knowledge about what you buy.

If a certain manufacturer never in its long history created a piece that now bears his signature mark, how can the piece be genuine? But we can only know that by learning all we can about this original maker's production.

Jelly Belly Jewelry:

Authentic jelly belly jewelry produced in the early 1940s in the United States, has a genuine Lucite center, a clear belly although some with tinted Lucite centers have been recognized as authentic also. Tinted Lucite was used in later production, the clear was the earliest.

The highly collectible jelly belly jewelry was created by Trifari and Coro, two well known American jewelry manufacturers and producers. Purist collectors consider only Trifari as the original jelly belly producer.

Although Coro also produced them, the Coro pieces are not referred to as jelly bellies by these collector purists. However, Coro's pieces are vintage authentic production of the 1940's era, and therefore generally accepted as jelly belly jewelry.

In addition, certain genuine non-marked jelly belly jewelry produced for specialty stores have also been recognized by the serious collector community as authentic jelly bellies. Fred Block is also known to have produced a limited number of jelly belly type jewelry.*

It's interesting to note that none of the manufacturers who made Lucite center costume jewelry ever called it jelly belly. It is a collector term that has only been popular for the past 20 or so years.

On the Net we can now find for sale and at auction jelly belly brooches attributed to Marcel Boucher, with the BOUCHER mark on them. According to Sandra Boucher, Marcel Boucher's widow, the Boucher jewelry production never included anything with a clear (or tinted) Lucite center. Therefore any piece purported to be a Boucher jelly belly was not made by Boucher. It is therefore a fake**.

Similarly, the Hobé company never produced jelly belly jewelry either according to sources at Hobé Ltd., thus any jelly belly type jewelry marked Hobé is also fake.

Fake sellers are very clever. They may call a newly made piece a recast. A real recast should represent an actual copy of the original vintage piece and be reissued by the original maker or its authorized successor only. But a "recast" of a piece in a design borrowed from one maker and marked with the name of another is not a recast; it never existed. It's a fake. In some cases the design of a recast is not a copy of any pre-existing vintage piece either, it's simply a new adaptation of a popular vintage motif but never produced exactly like that before.

Many beautiful and well made fakes certainly exist. Some collectors specialize in collecting fakes knowing full well that they are fake. These collectors have their own reasons for collecting the fakes. F.ex., they are experts on vintage jewelry and use the fakes as examples in their lectures at collector seminars and conventions. Debbie Kosnett, owner of Rhinestone Rainbow jewelry catalog site, is one such collector expert on fakes and reproductions.

But if you are a serious collector who insists on original vintage, you are not interested in a fake stand-in.

You are not pleased at having paid a high price for a vintage original if that is not what you received.

You feel cheated. As you should.

But you are not entirely blameless yourself. Had you but known that the price--although high in your opinion--was still a lot lower than you would expect to pay for original authentic vintage in the current market, maybe you would not have bid. Perhaps you thought that someone made a mistake when listing? It happens of course, and sometimes you can get lucky. But it doesn't happen very often.

When several similar auction listings by the same busy sellers appear simultaneously at the same time or very closely time wise, what are the odds that the pieces offered are actually vintage?

Vintage jewelry does not grow on trees. It's not made any longer. That's why it's called vintage; it's old production. That is the main reason collectors drive up prices for original vintage. Because it's rare. If the same pieces were available at the same time and in all the colors so to speak, they are no longer rare. And not vintage either. And, especially, don't command any lofty prices.

What To Do If You Bought A Fake:

If you discover that a piece on which you are the high bidder at auction is very likely a fake and you don't want to complete the transaction, you can refuse to send payment or stop payment on a check if already sent. Do not allow yourself to be intimidated by threats if a transaction is not completed, seek help from the auction site. There usually is a department that handles disputes. On eBay auction, it's called Safe Harbor.

If you already have the piece you bought in hand, your first action should be to request a refund and return it to the seller. If the seller refuses to refund, you can also report it to the auction site customer service. But do not count on an auction site only to resolve your dispute with a seller. If you paid by credit card, you can report the dispute to your credit card bank which can charge back the seller and you get credited. That should only be used as a last resort. Try one more time to convince the seller to agree to a refund; it's the least painful way out for everyone concerned.

As a bidder or buyer you have means to force the issue by promising to post negative feedback for the seller at the auction site. A complaint to the auction site may also result in getting a seller barred from further selling there. Sellers usually don't like either consequence so it's possible that you can get a credit or refund without having to go through your credit card bank for a charge back.

If you paid cash by money order or check already cashed, consult fraud prevention sites on the Net as to what recourse you may have to get a refund for fraudulently represented merchandise.

A word of caution about new looking vintage jewelry:

Do not immediately assume that all jewelry sold in the secondary market as vintage but in like-new condition must be fake. Much vintage jewelry now appearing has been in collections or storage for many years, and has only now seen light of day again after its owners passed on.

Some of this jewelry may have been worn once, or never. The owner may not have liked the piece especially, or perhaps it had been a gift. Or she had no occasion to ever wear it so it did not get worn. It is therefore still like new today but it is not a fake.

Or the jewelry may have come out of a closed jewelry factory, warehouse, or store. No one ever wore it and it's therefore literally new. In the hobby, such pieces are referred to as new-old stock, or uncirculated. New because they were never circulated, meaning sold to a store that sold to the retail customer, but old because of the era in which they were made.

Where to learn more about fakes:

Explore the Net, search the auction sites and websites, and be your own best detective. Some clues on how to spot the fakes and the fakers are in this article. Now you can do individual research. Use the general search engines and the search features on the main auction sites for the marks or signatures you collect, view the pictures and read the descriptions very carefully. If a description states recast or vintage look, beware. It is not genuine vintage. If you missed it or misunderstood the description, it's not the seller's fault as the piece was described as new.

A short-cut to condensed information is the Fakes Gallery discussion forum on this site. Posts report on known fakes and fakers with images to better visualize what the jewelry, fake or genuine, looks like.

For specifics you should also consult with others in the hobby, post questions yourself to the Fakes Gallery in the forum when you suspect a fake. You will find your fellow collectors very helpful in this respect as we all would rather not have the disappointing experience of unwittingly having purchased jewelry as vintage that turns out to be fake.

More About Fakes:
Victorian Jewelry: Old and New
Fakes, Reproductions Library