www.925-1000.com

Hello folks,
I recently bought a "Faberge style" egg from the Tony Curtis estate auction. I know that the chances of it being genuine are low, but I will welcome your opinions on the hallmarks. I'm sorry for the bad quality of the photos - the marks are so small, I had to photograph them through a 30x loupe.

There are two marks on the rim. The maker's mark is A*H, with a 6-pointed star between the initials. Is this a genuine mark of August Hollming?

To the left of the maker's mark is a badly applied silver mark. I can't see what it is. And to the right of the maker's mark, there is evidence of a 3rd mark being erased (see my final photo). The metal has horizontal scratching, so it was not caused by opening and closing the lid. It appears that someone used a tool to remove a 3rd mark.

I know, from reading the Faberge book by von Habsburg & von Solodkoff, that all items made in St Petersburg were personally inspected by Faberge. If an item was not good enough, it was either destroyed or sold with only the maker's mark but no Faberge mark. Is it possible that this is why the 3rd mark was erased on my egg? I could not find any research which says whether these items received 3 marks and the Faberge mark was erased if he did not approve it : or whether the maker applied 2 marks, and then the Faberge mark was added if he approved the item.

Thank you for all opinions.
BOB

Hi Frontfloater -

this is one of the many "Standard" faux Fabergé eggs -from marks to workmanshift to box. Every comment is useless.

Regards
Zolotnik

Thanks Zolotnik.

But this still leaves me with a puzzle. Why would a faker spend much time making an imitation box and an imitation egg, but then NOT add a fake Faberge hallmark? That would be the easiest and quickest part of his task. If this item was made to deceive a buyer, surely any faker would add a nice clear KF or K.Faberge hallmark on the base. Why not?

I am also curious why the (false?) Hollming mark is so small and difficult to see (you cannot see it without magnification). Again, I would expect a faker to add a false maker's mark which is easy to see - so it fools more people.

And why is there an erased mark?

BOB

Hi Frontfloater -
First - I did not make this fake, so I can not answer all your questions - I only see how it is done. There are many ways to make a fake. The easyest way is to take an existing product, for instance the enamel-guilloché egg. It is cheap and in different colours available. Now you put it on a stand, erase the old mark, ad new marks - adding Fabergé´s marks is much more difficult than 2 letters! The used size of the marks should look like the original marks and are not made for easy reading by ignorants!!!! By the way, the egg is wrong (upside down) mounted...The box used the wrong materials and the firm´s logo is wrong too. This objects are total phantasy without any history, industrially produced - costs appr. 20 USD. What did you pay? The difference is the profit....
Before you buy something which you do not know - learn what it is and how it should look and feel. Further take a look how Imperial Russian silver in general, expec. objects from Fabergé and his workshop are marked, acc. to the laws at that time.
If you are still interested why fakers fake - read the numerous threads on this subject on this forum.
There is an old saying: "A fool and his money will soon be parted"...

Regards
Zolotnik