[Mccoypottery-talk] Fakes flooding the auctions sites!

[Jennifer Ley]

Hi Barb

We tried to get a group letter going at one point from this list but
nothing came of it ... not that we can't try again.  From what I
understand the McCoy mark no longer belongs to the McCoys ... so they
can't do anything about the fakes themselves (or I'm sure they would).
Laura will probably be able to enlighten us more on this now that it's
come up again ... she and several other women run very good web pages
about repros ... and Laura's worked really hard to keep up with current
fakes like the wall pockets and little fish flower holders.  Her site
and other show how to tell the difference between new/fake and old, etc.

I've almost given myself an ulcer over the person who does private
auctions on Ebay and sells thousands of dollars worth of cookie jars a
week.  I wrote Ebay and they said the trademark/copyright holder had to
contact them.  In frustration I started a thread on the pottery
community board at Ebay ... and I have info on my web site so that
collectors who find me can find sites and reference books to help them
out.

I keep thinking that Martha Stewart would be the perfect person to do a
special on this ... she's had Chiquita on before ... or Country Living
... or something like that.  If I wasn't up to my ears in a new career
I'd take a stab at it myself.

Anyway ... re: the cookie jar quandry.  If you have one that is in the
books and seems to have the right marks ... measurements are one of the
final tests.  A fake will always be smaller than a real jar because
people make them by making molds of the originals.

Jen