Counterfeits

A precise digital copy of a famous painting even shows the brush strokes. When we go to a museum how can we be sure we are seeing the original work of art? The answer is a short one, we can’t. We are taking the word of the institution. It has been said you can even feel the textures when you touch these reproductions. There is an advantage to them however, and it is a lot of people can now enjoy a precise reproduction of a famous original painting and hang it in their homes. Do the advantages of perfect digital reproductions outweigh the disadvantages? I guess this is a question one must answer for themselves.

There have been a lot of complaints about forgeries appearing on Ebay, especially in the area which handles antiques. There are a lot of complaints from people who claim to have found out their purchase of an antique was nothing but a forgery. To be fair there are a few cases when people mistakenly believe what they bought was not genuine, and this usually happens because others who are not knowledgeable in these things have told them so, but the majority of claims are valid. I have been told stories about forgery factories going great guns turning out ancient Greek, Roman and even Babylonian “antiques”. One of the problems is the huge market for these pieces is not policed adequately. Along with these so called “antiques” we find copies of products from many, if not of all the famous manufactures. When you see a famous bag that usually sells for hundreds of dollars on sale for $39.95 you have to know something is wrong. Sometimes the items are not bad in themselves and may be worth the price, which is ironic.

It has been said it is almost impossible to get a real Apple product on Ebay. I don’t know if that is true, but it would certainly be a crap shoot. It turns out selling counterfeit goods is not only a good business, it has increased over the years. I would like to tell all those who don’t live near New York City about counterfeit Rolex watches. You can buy them on the street corners for a few dollars. Some of these same watches are appearing on Ebay, according to what I have been told. Instead of selling them for five dollars or so, they can be sold for hundreds and maybe thousands. The same is true for many other items which used to be restricted to street corners before the internet. This means the profit margins have increased tremendously for these criminals.

The Nazis thought they were the master race, did this mean they thought they were smarter than everyone else? Apparently, Hermann Goring was not very smart, because he purchased a fake Vermeer painting created by Han van Meegeren. Van Meegeren began his career not as a forger, but wanted to show he could paint as well as Johannes Vermeer. When his boss saw these paintings, he sold them as Vermeers. The scam went on until the total amount of money the forged paintings brought in reached the incredible sum of sixty million dollars. The sixty million was made on sales of six forged Vermeers. Van Meegeren was arrested when he refused to name the former owner of the painting sold to Goring. Since there was no former owner he was in a pickle.

In July 2018, six people were arrested for manufacturing counterfeit goods. They were manufacturing sanitary towels, shoe polish, food, and an assortment of other items. They had the machines for manufacturing the items, I guess they thought they would sell better with famous labels. This arrest was peanuts compared to an arrest made for the same reasons in New York City. In August, 2018 officials in New York City said they made one of the largest counterfeit items busts in the history of the city. Two dozen people were arrested. The counterfeit scheme generated about one half billion dollars. The criminals were selling fake luxury items such as Chanel perfume, and Vuitton bags among other items. Eleven more people have just been arrested bringing the total to 33 people. The items were all manufactured in China.

Money from the United States is still being counterfeited, but it becomes increasing harder to do, as the money gets more safeguards built into it which requires very special machines to manufacture it. One of the problems is people may not look at money too closely when making a transaction. so even poorly printed money might be able to be passed off on people. One elderly couple sold their old car for two thousand dollars, only to find out too late the money was counterfeit.  I had a strange thing happen to me once at the bank. I cashed a check at the teller’s window and had to pay a bill and the teller told me to do it at the next window. When I went to pay with the money I had just received, that teller said I had given her a counterfeit bill. I had to get the manager and I explained what happened and he ordered the teller to take the money. I suspect it was not counterfeit and the teller was wrong.

According to Forbes, a seller on Amazon was caught selling counterfeit Mercedes-Benz auto parts. Amazon was sued and their defense was they are only a conduit to sell things, and are  not the actual seller. In 2015 Amazon won a lawsuit which removed them from responsibility for these sales, but it is thought the lawsuit brought by Daimler about the parts may have a different result.

We live in a world which is different from our grandparents, a world where they could know with confidence what they bought was actually made by those who they thought it was. Today we can not know for sure what we purchase is what we think it is, unless we have an expert examine it, for even the people we might trust who sold it to us could have been fooled.