Where Yesterday Meets Tomorrow
The most obvious difference is the quality of the paint. The original has a thick hard paint that looks like it might have been baked on. There are at least three colors on the original - a strong semi-glossy black, a semi-gloss white, and a sem-gloss red. The method of applying the paint is not obvious. There are chips in the paint. Studying the chips shows a noticible thickness to the layer of paint.
The paint on the counterfeit is sloppily applied with a spray gun. There are only two colors - a flat black and a flat creamy color. You can see areas where the paint spray landed on the wrong spots on the body. Authentic pieces were never spray painted.
A second major difference is the size. The counterfeit is slightly smaller than the authentic piece.
The counterfeiters used the original to make molds for casting the fake. Therefore the fake is slighly smaller because it shrinks as the metal cools. Unfortunately, this size loss is only apparent when a fake and an original are viewed side by side. There are reference books on many toys and banks which give accurate measurements.
The following pictures illustrate the difference in construction between the two pieces. On the authentic doorstop, the seams where the pieces come together are tight and well fitting. There are two slot screws holding the pieces together, but they are not prominently visible. There are no obvious grinding marks. On the fake, the sloppiness in each of those areas is obvious.
Both dogs from the rear.
Both dogs from the side.
Both dogs from the bottom.
The workers to produced the early pieces took great pride in their work. If a piece didn't fit right, they'd toss it back into the cauldron and try again. On authentic cast iron, the seams where the various cast pieces came together are tight and flush. You will find few, if any, gaps. Following are several pictures illustrating how poorly the seams fit together on the fake doorstop.
Gaping seams between the ears - top of head.
Gaping seams from bottom.
Not every counterfeiter is as careless as the producer of this doorstop. Some fakes will be much more tightly constructed. And some authentic pieces will show occational minor gaps. So, as with paint, the "gaping seams" test is only one clue - not a conclusive proof.
Another construction clue is the fasteners used to hold the pieces together. Both pieces are held together by two screws passing through the side of the dog. On the authentic piece, the screws are barely visible. They've been carefully aligned to sit flush, then covered with the paint on the dog's sides. On the fake, the screws are misaligned so they don't sit flush against the dog's sides.
Closeup of screws on fake dog.
Philips head screws are a conclusive proof that a piece is fake. They did not even come into use until the 1940's.
On the original, the body has many areas of detail. The hair, ribs, claws on the feet, etc. are all clearly visible. On the fake, those details were lost when the fake mold was made.
If you find fine detail, you are probably looking at an authentic piece.
When iron is cast in a mold, the molten iron leaks into the gaps separating the various mold pieces. This excess is called "flashing" and needs to be removed. If you find a piece that still has the flashing remnants, you certainly have a fake.
On early pieces the flashing was removed by filing with a hand file. On modern fakes, it is removed with high speed power grinders. The difference in marks is obvious. The power grinder leaves very close exactly parallel lines across the metal on both sides of the metal seam. The ground off area is much wider than necessary. Hand filing will leave almost no marks and the ones that are there won't be exactly parallel to each other. There also won't be marks over an excessive area.
This image (above) shows grinding marks along the seam. It also shows a large gaping seam and a paper country of origin label. Because the label was applied before the spray painting, if it is removed, it will leave a small rectangular patch in the paint. Look for such patches (and also glue residue) as a clue that the country of origin label has been removed.
Similar to flashing is a pebbly roughness that occurs from not having a totally clean mold when the casting is done. Authentic cast iron is very smooth - both from careful manufacture and from many decades of use. Fakes often have much rougher surfaces.
Cast iron is a great collecting field. You CAN protect yourself from the overwhelming majority of fakes simply by carefully examining the piece and apply all these rules of thumb to the object. Remember that no one rule is conclusive proof of authenticity. You need to check out everything and then add up all the evidence. You may find pieces with conflicting clues - great looking paint but a few imperfect seams, for instance - which give you pause. You play your intuition and experience, factor in the price, remember that when you resell it later, you'll have to convince the next buyer that it's authentic, and then decide whether to buy it or not. You can often be 100% sure when you're looking at a fake, but you may never be 100% sure you're looking at an authentic piece.
Incidentally, if you've got an authentic piece of cast iron, DO NOT PAINT IT! The paint is the best single evidence of age. Even heavily painted damaged and missing paint is better than new paint. Put on new paint, and you'll never convince anyone that it's really an old piece.
© 1997-2002 Coxsackie Antique Center
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