www.925-1000.com

The Forbidden Knowledge article was very interesting. At this point I'm inclined to believe that much of what has been written about Armand Hammer is true and this includes the trip to Russia in 1921 and dealings with the Soviet government at that time.

As Armand Hammer and family were so deeply involved with art objects, further discussion of this aspect of silver does seem appropriate to me.

Carl Blumay's book ( the one I quoted above) tells pretty much the same story as Epstein. He wrote it after his old boss died, when he could tell his truth, as witnessed during his decades of working for Hammer.

Hammer's own book has a photo of Lenin, dedicated to "Comrade Hammer" by hand, and dated November 20, 1921. There are also photos of him with Krushchev, Kosygin, Mikoyan, Brezhnev and Gorbachev ( Nixon, Johnson, Carter, Reagan...)

I also think a lot written about him is true. His own words, however, are a different matter. One of Hammer's mottos was "Those who insist on telling the truth never have a future. The only way to build a future is to build it on lies."

To me, his dealings in Russian silver/Faberge should, indeed, be of interest to collectors.

The facts and the stories about the Hammer brothers are very disturbing. But in my opinion the many faked Fabergé objects are mostly an American problem of the absolute uneducated but very rich clients Hammer had. Many museum "gifts" from Texan million Dollar widows were silently withdrawn and destroyed in the U.S.A. and Canada. In this contex the book "The Fabergé Case" by John Traina, also an non - expert, is a very interesting read. He bought (let buy) a big collection of Fabergé cigarette cases - some from ex Hammer clients - but there are many fakes and not Russian (France, Latvia, Finnish Karelian birch) cases. All the experts write some nice words in his book - but nothing about fakes. If you have enough money everything is possible....
The normal collector will never in his life find some real Fabergé object on fleemarkets, garagesales etc. And what is offered in most auctionhouses...even Sotheby´s and Christie´s????
And if someone would offer me one of the Imperial Easter eggs for 7.5 Million USD as an super occasion I would do without...

Regards
Postnikov