Anecdotes of forged OA?

[Smokinghawk]

Someome mentioned last week that they knew a guy who'd bought a piece of OA and ended up with a forgery. How common is that? Does anyone have stories about occasions when this has happened? Or better yet, scans?

[Solar]

There have been lots of forged sketches on ebay. A website dedicated wholly to commissions based on Neal Gaiman's Sandman series shut down due to the fact that the owner believed the scans on his site were providing source material for potential scammers to forge. I've also seen fake Frazetta examples for auction on ebay.

 

I've never seen a fake published piece, though I'm sure it's probably happened.

[desertdogg]

i once saw a fake frazetta silver age ghost rider cover. it was oversized. but very nice. had the logos drawn in and everything. if the person with it did not tell me it was a fake. i would have thought it was real for sure.

 

larry

[tth2]

That's the thing. If the existence of a lot of prime covers and interior pages, particularly from GA and early SA, is not certain, then wouldn't it be relatively easy to create OA forgeries? I mean, assuming you could get aged paper and all, you'd just have to get a skilled artist using a lightbox to create an OA-looking work from the real comic. No one could know whether it was real just from looking at the work, because no one would know what the real OA looks like. Much more detailed analysis would be required to figure out if it's a forgery.

 

The same would apply to OA that has not seen the light of day, such as the stuff allegedly owned by KK. Suppose I sold a forgery of the X-Men #1 cover, who could refute it other than KK by showing his own cover, and we know he won't do that.

[desertdogg]

well. i think the key. to the whole thing like you stated if you came across some vintage art boards from marvel or dc. you may get away with a forged page, as long as no one have seen the original page or cover.

 

which would be pretty tuff as most art have been seen at least once by someone.

now i know a lot of art that has not been seen in years . that are buried in private collections. must people just think the art does not exist.

 

because it not sitting on someones web site in a gallery. some people just don,t want to the world to know what they have. due to some art has changed hands in a shady fashion. but we covered that topic already.

 

so if you want to see the good stuff pop up in the open. let a forged x-men # 1 cover pop up on a heritage auction or ebay. and for sure we will see the real x-men # 1 cover come into the light. no one is going to let a fake cover sell for 100 k and sit idle while they have the real deal in there collection.

 

larry

[heartened]

well. i think the key. to the whole thing like you stated if you came across some vintage art boards from marvel or dc. you may get away with a forged page, as long as no one have seen the original page or cover.

 

which would be pretty tuff as most art have been seen at least once by someone.

now i know a lot of art that has not been seen in years . that are buried in private collections. must people just think the art does not exist.

 

because it not sitting on someones web site in a gallery. some people just don,t want to the world to know what they have. due to some art has changed hands in a shady fashion. but we covered that topic already.

 

so if you want to see the good stuff pop up in the open. let a forged x-men # 1 cover pop up on a heritage auction or ebay. and for sure we will see the real x-men # 1 cover come into the light. no one is going to let a fake cover sell for 100 k and sit idle while they have the real deal in there collection.

 

larry

 

Right, that's the issue. The original art circle is extremely close knit and we all talk to each other. Many people have been around for several decades, and know a great deal about what is out there and what has changed hands in the past. Many of them have saved scans of the originals, so they have ready access to them. So, if you're going to try to sell a fake, it's fairly easy to get caught. Look at what sort of investigating you guys had to do (first, figure out if a book is the same copy, then compare scans) to figure out this FF 3 thing. With comic art, all you need to do is compare scans, since there is only one original. And, so, if you're selling a fake, you'd better be sure that no one has the original or a scan of the original. And, you can never be certain of that. It's a big gamble, even if you were able to find the right vintage art board and recreate it perfectly, with just the right amount of wear.

[tth2]

Points taken, but for the kind of money that OA goes for, you`d only have to make a few big scores. Clearly anyone who wanted to successfully pull off a scam would need to do their homework first and make as sure as possible that the OA didn`t exist. Probably the easiest target would be GA OA? Does that much early SA OA really exist?

[rob_react]

People have forged Old Master paintings (anecdotally onto the walls of museums). Forging original comic art is well within the realm of possibility since the OA community doesn't even have 1/10th of the tools someone trying to verify an Old Master painting would have at his/her disposal. I would think the toughest part would be getting old art board, but there's ways around that certainly.

[tth2]

That`s exactly what I was thinking. That`s why I was surprised that the OA members here seem so complacent about the possibility of forgery.

[JohnBull]

The easiest way to get the board would be to do exactly the kind of thing they do in the antique world - get some existing, but lower value OA, and wipe the board clean.

 

I think the key then would be to fake something that was valuable, but not too audacious.

 

As to what's available, I've read threads here and there that say things like - "There's no existing ASM OA below issue X" etc. I'm not sure that coming up with the info and producing an inner page from issue X-1 would be that difficult.

 

Personally, I'd rather forge comics which I'm sure is much easier. Get some GA pages, bleach them and make up a few Action 1's. Then jump on them a bit to get the grades down to something low to middling, that will arouse no suspicion, but nets $30k or $40k a time. Let out one a year for a decade or so, how difficult can it be?

 

Before anyone says "It must be difficult or someone would have done it by now", how do we know they haven't???

[rob_react]

The easiest way to get the board would be to do exactly the kind of thing they do in the antique world - get some existing, but lower value OA, and wipe the board clean.

 

That's WAY easier said than done. Ink isn't paint and paper isn't canvas or true (wood) board. Ink soaks into paper. If there was an easy way to remove ink from a page without damaging it, artists would use THAT instead of paste-up corrections or painting over it with white opaque.

[JohnBull]

The easiest way to get the board would be to do exactly the kind of thing they do in the antique world - get some existing, but lower value OA, and wipe the board clean.

 

That's WAY easier said than done. Ink isn't paint and paper isn't canvas or true (wood) board. Ink soaks into paper. If there was an easy way to remove ink from a page without damaging it, artists would use THAT instead of paste-up corrections or painting over it with white opaque.

 

I'm sure you're right. I'm equally sure that for people who deal in such matters (and we're not talking artists here), it would be possible even if expensive. Whatever the expense, I'm betting it would cost less than the $50k the final piece could go for.

 

Fortunately, despite what some might think, I don't think the world of fine art and it's forgers, could give a fig about comic art and they'd much rather knock out a fake old master or something.

[rob_react]

The easiest way to get the board would be to do exactly the kind of thing they do in the antique world - get some existing, but lower value OA, and wipe the board clean.

 

That's WAY easier said than done. Ink isn't paint and paper isn't canvas or true (wood) board. Ink soaks into paper. If there was an easy way to remove ink from a page without damaging it, artists would use THAT instead of paste-up corrections or painting over it with white opaque.

 

I'm sure you're right. I'm equally sure that for people who deal in such matters (and we're not talking artists here), it would be possible even if expensive. Whatever the expense, I'm betting it would cost less than the $50k the final piece could go for.

 

True. Still, I'd guess that, based on the (lack of) technical scrutiny the page would likely see, "aging" paper of the right weight would be preferable to whatever process they'd use to clean an actual vintage page.

[SignatureSelect]

Preventing forgery would be easy if all the artist and collectors got together and set up a database. with pictures and when note when a sale was made.

[Thomas]

Preventing forgery would be easy if all the artist and collectors got together and set up a database. with pictures and when note when a sale was made.

 

But that would devalue the art if there were scans around.

[desertdogg]

i concur the ideal of thecollector set up a data base. we don,t really need scans or the price / trade of the items. just the fact that a deal was made for said page or cover. between two persons.

 

this way the public know the art at least does exist. and if a so called fake came on the market. we would be able to verify with current or past owner of the item if said piece is the real deal or not. with that kind of info in hand. we would cut down the fakes almost to none.

 

plus. it really cool to know what,s out there and what,s not.

 

larry ;]

[rob_react]

While nice in theory, there's no way in hell that such a database could ever be compiled to the level of inclusiveness needed to accurately guard against forgeries. For one thing, not all art is still "in" the hobby, so it would automatically fall outside the scope off the database. That's ignoring the secretive nature of many inside the hobby, art that is "missing" and presumed lost (when do you conclusively prove that a piece of art DOESN'T exist,) etc. etc. etc.

 

The "real" art world has sales records dating back, in some cases, centuries and catalogue raisonnes detailing artist's entire output and there are STILL questions of authorship and attribution (see- the "new" Rembrandts announced just last week.) Better bookkeeping isn't a magic talisman against forgery.

[desertdogg]

rob. i hear ya. but. i know it not a perfect ideal. but it more of a deterent to a person thinking about doing a forgery. also i know everybody will not want to get on board with the program because they still live in the dark ages.

 

but if you take public info of sale from ebay. heritage and other auctions. and allow collectors to submit there own deals to the site. you would have a pretty good amount of info for the public. which to me would still be helpful to the hobby.

 

larry ;]

[rob_react]

rob. i hear ya. but. i know it not a perfect ideal. but it more of a deterent to a person thinking about doing a forgery. also i know everybody will not want to get on board with the program because they still live in the dark ages.

 

but if you take public info of sale from ebay. heritage and other auctions. and allow collectors to submit there own deals to the site. you would have a pretty good amount of info for the public. which to me would still be helpful to the hobby.

 

larry ;]

 

It would definitely be helpful to the hobby, regardless of how much it does to stop forgery.

[tth2]

Boy, people on these boards didn't want to talk about THIS topic, did they?

 

Makes me think of the way people say "cancer" sotto voce.