Fakes, auctions and fraud

Last night, there was a program on Swedish television about pop-art fakes being sold by the leading Swedish auction house, lauritz.com (who recently also bought the world’s oldest auction house, Stockholms Auktionsverk).

Obviously, they have sold fake Andy Warhols and similar, for millions , knowing that they were fakes (printed by an Epson inkjet).

The reporters discovered that the sellers were managers and employees of the auction house. They also discovered that the sellers/employees regularly bid on their own fakes to increase the prices.

One former employee also had made a lot of paintings with a signature of an artist that didn’t exist (he had painted them himself).* The reporters got a few photos that he had used on Lauritz, but also eBay, from a buyer in London that he had screwed for over 400.000 SEK, found out that they had been taken with a mobile phone and had GPS coordinates imbedded in the picture data, went to the address and found an atelier, an old warehouse, where the auctioneer made his paintings.

A major scandal, but I am not surprised. There have been fake art prints around for over a hundred years, and I am always suspicious.

On the other hand, I still have not found one single fine press book with original art that has been forged. I am amazed when I see, for example, that a book with 30-60 original copper engravings by Decaris normally costs between 50 and 400 euros, while single copper engravings, signed by the same (hopefully!) usually cost 300-600 Euros. I feel blessed to be a book collector, and I prefer to have my art in a book rather than on the wall.

Edit: * The non-existant artist’s name is Mikael Kadaz, and here is a webpage about a vernissage of his, written by someone who obviously has been misled: http://www.gatukonst.se/2010/05/05/michael-kadaz-pa-marie-laveau/

Edit2: Here is the URL of the streamed TV program. I believe that it is blocked outside Sweden, but for those of you who are interested and know how to bypass that obstacle: http://www.svtplay.se/video/2911181/uppdrag-granskning/uppdrag-granskning-avsnit...

I've thought about this before - I think it would be very hard to counterfeit a fine press book, and if one managed, letterpress and all, it would probably be a nice production, worth having in its own right.

So that employee made original paints, signed with his pen name. Perhaps he advertised them untruthfully but other than that it sounds legit.

A little more info in English: http://www.thelocal.se/20150513/fake-pop-art-sold-at-top-nordic-auction-house

The rogues! It would make a good book though...(and no doubt a movie is already being planned).

>1 parchment.redux: " I feel blessed to be a book collector, and I prefer to have my art in a book rather than on the wall."

My feelings exactly.

I could not find a similar thread or post to add to, so I will resurrect and re-appropriate this thread for purposes more specific to this forum. I have come across an eBay seller who has sold and continues to auction various LEC titles with limitation number 711. I believe these copies were numbered by the same hand. I found that the '711' seems to lack the correct style, flourish and in almost all instances even the ink when compared with their respective counterparts.

Am I correct in assuming that the signatory to the limitation page also numbers the book? Even if not, I found the contrast in styles blatantly obvious. Is it possible that these were unnumbered copies that the owner or seller decided to inscribe? The thought crossed my mind because this seller also continues to list many unnumbered LEC titles.

Over the past 2 days, I searched this seller's listings - both live and sold, for LEC titles bearing the limitation no. 711; cropped the limitation pages without reducing the resolution and created a collage for the first image below. In the interest of thoroughness and to ease the process of comparative analysis, I searched ALL listings of these titles on Abebooks and sold/ unsold listings on eBay to create a further 17 19 21 24 26 30 32 collages for each of the suspect titles presented below.

The purpose of this exercise is not to tarnish the reputation of the above mentioned seller but to elicit views that disprove my observation; else if proved right, warn prospective buyers. In case of the latter, I wonder how this affects the value of the suspect titles and for what reason(s) if any, would forum members still purchase such titles.

Lastly, any forum members who own LEC titles numbered 711, are requested to post a photo of the limitation page for further comparison :)

PS: Forgive the long post and haphazard collation of images; but if you decide to investigate with me don't forget to open each image in a new tab or download and zoom in.





Comparison for The Three-Cornered Hat, 1959





Comparison for The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan, 1947





Comparison for The Count of Monte Cristo, 1941





Comparison for The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard, 1937





Comparison for The Federalist, 1945





Comparison for Tales of the Gold Rush, 1944





Comparison for Jonathan Wild, 1943





Comparison for The Koran: Selected Suras, 1958





Comparison for The Poems of Longfellow, 1944





Comparison for The Poems of Whittier, 1945





Comparison for The Red and the Black, 1947





Comparison for The Red Badge of Courage, 1944





Comparison for The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, 1945





Comparison for The Rose and the Ring, 1942





Comparison for The Memoirs of Saint-Simon, 1959





Comparison for The Story of an African Farm, 1961





Comparison for The Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle, 1956





Comparison for The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1957





Comparison for The Aeneid, 1944





Comparison for Chichikov's Journeys (Dead Souls), 1944





Comparison for The Pilgrim's Progress, 1941





Comparison for The Literary Works of Abraham Lincoln, 1942





Comparison for The Wonderful Adventures of Paul Bunyan, 1945





Comparison for Westward Ho!, 1947





Comparison for Ivanhoe, 1940





Comparison for The Prairie, 1940





Comparison for All Men Are Brothers, 1948





Comparison for The Essayes of Francis Bacon, 1944





Comparison for The Temptation of Saint Anthony, 1943





Comparison for Green Grow the Lilacs, 1954





Comparison for Crainquebille, 1949





Comparison for One World, 1944





ETA (27 Sep, 2023): Dorian Gray, Aeneid
ETA (31 Jan, 2024): Dead Souls, Pilgrim's Progress
ETA (04 Feb, 2024): Abraham Lincoln, Wonderful Adventures of Paul Bunyan, Westward Ho!
ETA (17 Feb, 2024): Ivanhoe 1940, Prairie
ETA (17 May, 2024): All Men are Brothers, Essayes of Francis Bacon, Temptation of St. Anthony, Green Grow the Lilacs
ETA (18 May, 2024): Crainquebille, One World

>7 mr.philistine:
Extraordinary dedication and work to identify all these copies.
I agree that most of the 711 copies do not look genuine.

>7 mr.philistine:
Compelling. I know there are unnumbered extras and some of these were for LEC staff, printers, designers etc. Sometimes they were blindstamped. So it would be interesting to know if these are.

What I can’t get my head around is that unnumbered/out of series copies shouldn’t really need to be discounted by much. Though I suppose the effort involved in forging numbers is small.

Thank you for doing this detective work. One issue that strikes me is that we can't say who would be behind this possible forgery or when it might have taken place. The current seller of these 711s has many other LECs for sale, some with different numbers, and even one that I saw that has no number (why not 711 this one as well?). This suggests to me that this seller did not originate the phony 711s but likely acquired them at some point as a group. They are a prolific book seller so it would stand to reason. So who is behind this? Why did they do it? And why that number - are they a huge fan of Big Gulp Slurpees? We'll never know.

How very interesting, mr.p

I have one of these, picture below which will give you a crick in the neck as I have forgotten the trick to turn it right way up. The 711 is in a noticeably different hand from the only other example of this book I can find on a cursory search - that one uses a crossed 7 for example. Break of Day is from 1983, markedly later than your examples. The Gilot signature looks good. My book was bought out of the private collection of an LT member in the US.

>11 affle: Nice camera - your photo captures the letterpress impression very clearly! I have taken the liberty of rotating and cropping your photo to compare alongside 4 other specimens, including the one you mention.


Comparison for Break of Day, 1983

>12 mr.philistine:
Three different sevens at least…

interesting discussion, i will ask Carol about this, she will have much better insight. I can however say the person signing the book will not necessarily be the person who numbered it. Even unnumbered books have signatures and these are extras in case a book gets damaged in transit etc. it is quite possible that single books have been replaced due to damage, but it is certainly unusual that there are this many of the same number. I'm also not sure if replacement books would have been numbered in the same manner as other copies since it would have been done at very different times. It is quite feasible that it could differ. What makes this interesting is as a fake it doesn't really have much purpose, the increase in value is really not much. my thoughts would be it is possible the numbers are problematic, but very unlikely the books are. maybe a collector loss a large number of books due to some event, and requested replacements from LEC?

The signer(s) didn't number the books. In the case of books printed by Mardersteig, copies were numbered in the press, i. e., at the time of printing. Others were either stamped or manually numbered.

>14 rocklands: I can however say the person signing the book will not necessarily be the person who numbered it.

>15 Glacierman: The signer(s) didn't number the books.

Appreciate your informative posts. But since I am not a qualified handwriting analyst, I can agree to these statements when visibly different coloured inks are used to sign and number the books.

But how about the same coloured ink for both signature and number? In many such instances; after comparing the style, curves and colour tone of the number relative to the signature, I am of the opinion that the same hand was responsible for both. The only other explanation is that the same pen and ink was used by the numbering slave :) The Federalist and The Red Badge of Courage presented in >7 mr.philistine: are clear examples.

For whatever reason, I have singled out Bruce Rogers' signed works to help further our understanding on this matter. Of the 9 10 LEC titles from 1933 to 1950 bearing his signature, only The Republic, Extant Remains and Poems of Robert Frost bear witness against me.


Aesop's Fables, 1933





Utopia, 1934





The Wind in the Willows, 1940





The Poems of William Shakespeare, 2-volume, 1941





The Essayes of Francis Bacon, 1944





The Republic, 1944





The Federalist, 1945





The Extant Remains of the Greek Text, 1947





The Complete Poems of Robert Frost, 1950





Gulliver's Voyage to Brobdingnag, 1950





Gulliver's Voyage to Lilliput, 1950





ETA (05 Feb, 2024): Gulliver's Voyage to Brobdingnag and Lilliput

>16 mr.philistine: The thing is there is no specific consistent method used so the details could differ from book to book. In the case of Bruce Rogers being the designer of the book it is quite feasible that he both signed and numbered the books, but that will be more related to his involvement with the production of the book as part of the team who made the book happen. Someone like Robert Frost will not be bothered to number the books, getting him to sign the books would have been a big coup already, they would not ask him to number as well.

Generally how it works with these signature pages is they are send to everyone who will sign them as single pages and likely will not be signed at the same time, hence the different colour pens. In this case it was likely send to Robert first, then Thomas and lastly Bruce. It could even be feasible that the same person's signature could differ due to a pen running out of ink etc.

A good example of this is with some modern small press books. Centipede Press will release an edition of Ghost Story by Peter Straub late in 2023, which will be signed by him. He however passed away in Sept 2022, but since the production can take several years, in this case the signatures were obtained several years ago already and will simply be bound into the final book. Cemetery Dance will release (or might be out already) a signed edition of Interview with a Vampire, even though Anne Rice passed away quite some time ago.

The numbering of Robert Frost was probably just done internally by a staff member or someone in the design team, Bruce might have been tired of doing it and gave the responsibility to someone else, or done by him but not at the same time as signing.

When they have unnumbered copies of the book set aside for cases where a book got damage, I do not think it will automatically be numbered by the same person who did the original batch and could quite possibly simply be done by whoever was available to do so in the office. For instance your copy of Robert Frost got damaged in transit, you contact the LEC office and send your damaged copy back. they then provide you with a replacement copy and since say Bruce Rogers might be based in a different state they will simply number it internally by a staff member.

So in reality the date between the original books being numbered and the numbering of a replacement copy could be months (even years) apart so it will likely not look consistent with the original batch of numbers.

It's extremely rare to find fakes in fine press books, because unlike a first edition copy, ALL books will be signed, the production will be the same, you'll need the original letterpress plates etc. You could potentially fake the number in an unnumbered copy, but this will really be of little use, considering the titles in your original post the potential shift in value will likely be less than $20. Fakes are really done for monetary gain and there are no need for that in most of the titles.

Having someone fake James Joyce signature on a copy of Ulysses could very well be something that could be attempt, because in that case you'll see a $20 000 value increase in your copy. It is however an unusual situation because in most cases ALL the books are essentially exactly the same with no benefit to be gained in faking anything on the colophon.

What could be interesting is, finding out who the owner of #711 was. If anything this could shed some light onto why someone might possibly want to fake the numbers. If this number was allocated to someone famous, it could possibly be that it was done in an attempt to connect these books to that person.

Alternatively it might be that someone had a fairly extensive collection of #711, but with gaps in it. That person could have been buying up unnumbered copies and numbering it in an attempt to try and complete his collection.

Both not great situations and complete speculation on my side.

>17 rocklands: Your explanation for Poems of Robert Frost is agreeable, esp. the different coloured inks used for each signature. Bruce Rogers (1870-1957) would have turned 80 in 1950 and it is understandable that he would feel tired or had more compelling obligations to fulfill than hand-number books.

Since we can only conjecture and attempt logical deductions at this point in time, short of an authoritative first-hand account, here is one of mine. Excluding BR and others who were involved at the heart of the publication; in cases of single signatures by illustrators where the same ink is used I wonder if it would be easier for the signer to both sign and number the sheets simultaneously. Since the signer was contracted for a specific number of copies usu. 1500 plus extras, I imagine they would want to keep track of the number! Of course, this is not an absolute rule and there are so many examples of numbers and signatures using different inks and styles. But I also observe several examples where I can only conclude to a reasonable degree of certainty that the same individual has signed and numbered the sheet.

And regarding branding the aforementioned 711s' as fakes, I agree it is too strong a word. If the book is authentic and the signature matches other examples, the only problem left is the dubious numbering. However, even if it is proved that these 711s' were illegitimately numbered and that such an act does little to affect the value of the book, I for one will prefer to err on the side of caution when in the market for a numbered LEC.

The latter scenario presented in >18 rocklands: seems more plausible, since the former would be connected to financial gain and I would expect to be convinced by a much better class of forged penmanship.

>19 mr.philistine: I think many of the examples you gave in your post do in fact show that the person signing the book and numbering them are most likely the same person.

I would also agree that the dubious numbers unless explained makes those copies less desirable. Since copies without the issue can be found for almost the exact same price. I like to have some unusual cases in my collection so I might in fact be tempted to get some copies to go along with my original copy as a variant yet to be explained. even if the numbers are faked it would make it a unique item, although with no real monetary benefit, in fact it might have a negative monetary effect.

I like to buy PC copies for the same reason, in the case of LEC, PC copies will be those that are not numbered but have initials in the same space. I enjoy finding out who's copy it was and also enjoy them for the uniqueness. I probably have around 2 dozen such copies at the moment.

What an incredibly interesting and confusing find! Can't understand a collector who would want to alter their books in this way, or how it would be worth it for a bookseller to do it and try to pass it off as genuine. Although I doubt the seller in this case is the one who did it based on the posts. Thanks for the heads up, I will definitely avoid 711 copies if I find them.

Based on some posts in this thread it seems that some collectors value numbered copies higher than office/presentation ones. Can anyone explain their reasoning for this? Personally, I have no preference between numbered/unnumbered copies, or ones with initials of the recipient, even if the initials are not for a notable person. I only have a couple presentation copies, and I wouldn't pay a premium for one that doesn't have a notable association. Does anyone else feel the same?

https://www.librarything.com/topic/316649#8169578 Here's my copy of The Wind in the Willows that I suspect is Bruce Rogers' own copy, and Carol Grossman said it likely is but can't confirm with 100% certainty. She suspects it was initialed in the office and not by Rogers himself, and the BR in my copy does not look too similar to the BR in books he initialed.

I've always wondered if there are fake dust jackets for first editions like Gatsby or The Wind in the Willows. A Gatsby jacket can be worth six figures, and I see sellers try and get tens of thousands for The Wind in the Willows jacket. I'd assume there are many modern firsts like this, but its not a market I pay attention too so I'm not sure. Does anyone know of any fake jacket cases or have any insight on the production process and how difficult it would be to make?

>21 PBB: PC Copies (mostly known as publisher copies) in most cases are worth less than the numbered copies. In the case of LEC, I personally prefer the PC copies for their association, but that is not necessarily an universal feeling.

For most small press publisher the PC copies are significantly less attractive to collectors. PC copies for the likes of Suntup, Cemetery Dance, subterranean and many other publishers are typically 20-35% lower priced than numbered copies. here you will mostly find that even the copies the author will received will be marked PC, so it doesn't quite have the same association

Centipede Press is possibly an outlier because their PC copies are numbered in roman numerals. It is still the same thing, but some collectors prefer these.

In reality for most cases PC copies should be valued at a lower amount in particular if they are marked PC (or HC Hors Commerce) as happened in Schiff Era, because these really are simply extra copies, office copies etc and do fall outside the limitation of any particular release.

For LEC i would treat initialed copies different to HC copies or unnumbered copies. initialed copies could be allocated to George Macy, or the author, etc which i feel make them more interesting. HC and unnumbered are just generic and should be valued lower.

I’ve bid on a few of those. Less disappointed to have missed them now.

Updated >7 mr.philistine: with two more LECs' bearing limitation no. 711 and listed in the last few days from the same seller.

The seller has also listed a copy of Old Goriot with limitation no. 461 penned in blue ink - which appears suspect to my eyes. Hence a similar treatment below to get a few more eyes on. :)


Comparison for Old Goriot, 1948





Comparison for Beowulf, 1952





ETA (18 May, 2024): Beowulf

>24 mr.philistine: I was about to post the same thing. There’s a listing that went up today where it looks like whoever numbered it in ink messed up, and had to go over one of the numbers. Really messy

>24 mr.philistine:
the blue signature in 461 looks fake to me when compared to the other ones.

>25 PBB: Thanks, added 3 more.

The time has come to add 4 6 more listings of the mysterious 711s' to >7 mr.philistine:

Could someone please summarize what people suspect is fake and why? Thank you.

I believe we have a new contender to the 711 and that is no. 461 from the same seller. First highlighted in >24 mr.philistine: and now updated with Beowulf. The pictures speak for themselves.

>30 mr.philistine:
Interesting! The seller also has at least one unnumbered book listed, which could be an oversight or just possibly a sign that this numbering has been done by a collector rather than the bookseller (no affiliation!) who may have acquired currently listed books from different sources. That generous explanation doesn’t really help with the new second set of numbers, though - it’s hard to imagine a collector acquiring lots of unnumbered books and deciding they should be numbered differently…

As a potential buyer I would much rather acquire an unnumbered book, of course. Still, good starting prices on eBay.

>31 GusLogan: They have always listed a few unnumbered titles with every batch of LECs. They currently list 7 unnumbered. I have also purchased a few titles in the past from this seller because of the reasonable shipping cost via eBay GSP.

>29 astropi: The writing for books numbered 711 is very similar across many different books. It looks as if someone took unnumbered books and numbered them all in one go with 711.

I wonder what the original source was for so many unnumbered copies. I assume the LEC (and other publishers) would have a small amount of extra, unnumbered copies in case an original copy was lost/damaged in shipment, and a blank one could be quickly numbered to replace the damaged one. That would explain some variation in ink/handwriting on any random work, but not across so many different books like this.

I am the owner of The Koran #711. I don't remember if I bought it before or after this thread was made.

>32 mr.philistine:
So surely that suggests it’s not the seller doing the numbering, at least?

>34 GusLogan: I have not contacted the seller on this matter, nor do I advocate sentencing in absentia. But since you insist and only for the sake of argument on this fine Sunday afternoon, please note my views hereafter. :)

Fraudulent numbering or direct knowledge/ involvement thereof notwithstanding; even trading in such goods (now with the discovery of a second instance!) over at least 8 months is cause for genuine concern.

Whether the seller is guilty of selling the affected items despite being made aware of the aforementioned or not, I will play the devil's advocate and lay blame with the seller for not fully authenticating goods listed for sale to the general public. After all, the seller is a member of the ABAA, the Ephemera Society and the Maine Antiques Dealers Association and therefore bound to uphold the codes and standards espoused by those esteemed associations. The seller's very membership depends on doing so.

Highlighted in the image below (with arrows and underlining), relevant codes from the ABAA Code of Ethics and Standards webpage.
https://www.abaa.org/about-abaa/code-of-ethics
https://www.abaa.org/about-abaa/guarantee

>35 mr.philistine:
A good point, even if made partially in jest!