Real vs. Reproduction: How to Spot Fake Vintage

Start with wear, not with marks

Marks can be faked; sixty years of use cannot. Turn the piece over and read the base. Genuine older items show fine, multi-directional scratching where they slid across counters and shelves — not a few deliberate scuffs in one direction. Feet and rims wear smooth at the contact points. Silver darkens in the recesses of a design and stays bright on the raised areas your fingers touched. A piece that looks uniformly aged all over, including places nothing would ever rub, has usually been "distressed" on purpose.

Sterling silver hallmarks

On North American pieces, look for STERLING, STER, or 925. British silver uses a series of small stamps — lion passant for sterling, a town mark, a date letter, and a maker's mark — struck crisply and usually slightly unevenly by hand. Warning signs include EPNS (electroplated nickel silver, not silver), 925 plated, "German silver" or "nickel silver" (no silver content at all), and modern-looking laser-etched marks with perfectly even depth.

Two quick field tests: sterling is non-magnetic, so a strong magnet that grabs the piece rules it out immediately, and real silver conducts heat fast — an ice cube melts noticeably quicker on it than on plated metal.

Pyrex backstamps and Fire King marks

Vintage Pyrex is dated by its backstamp. Early pieces read PYREX in all capitals with "Made in USA" or "Made in Canada"; the lowercase pyrex logo signals later production, and Corning's Canadian output has its own stamp variations worth learning if you shop here. Pattern colours matter too — a "Butterprint" in a colourway that never existed is a decal reproduction, and those reproduction decals sit slightly proud of the glass and chip at the edges rather than fading evenly.

Fire King pieces are typically marked FIRE-KING with "Anchor Hocking", "Oven Ware", or "Ovenware" and often a mould number. Genuine jadeite has a soft, slightly cloudy depth; new jadeite-style glass reads flat, glossy, and too even in colour, and it usually weighs less.

Glass: seams, bubbles and sound

• Mould seams. Older pressed glass has seams that stop short of the rim, where the lip was fire-polished. Seams that run cleanly over the rim usually mean modern manufacture.
• Small imperfections. Tiny bubbles, straw marks, and slight asymmetry are typical of older production and hard to fake convincingly.
• Ring test. Lead crystal rings with a long sustained tone when flicked; ordinary glass gives a short dull note. It is not conclusive, but it separates crystal from pressed glass quickly.
• Cut vs. pressed. Real cut crystal has sharp, slightly irregular facet edges you can feel; pressed "crystal-look" glass has rounded, uniform edges.

Costume jewellery and signed pieces

Older costume jewellery uses prong-set or foil-backed rhinestones, applied clasps, and signatures on a small soldered plaque or stamped into the metal. Glued-in stones with visible adhesive haze, lightweight cast findings, and printed rather than stamped signatures point to reproduction. A signature by itself is never enough — the construction has to agree with it.

Furniture and mid-century pieces

Check the drawer joints: dovetails cut with slight variation suggest older work, while perfectly uniform machine-cut joints or staples and cam locks suggest recent manufacture. Solid wood with visible grain continuity across a panel beats a printed veneer. Original manufacturer labels usually hide inside a drawer bottom or on the back panel — worth a flashlight before you commit.

Buy with the homework already done

Every piece in the shop is inspected, identified and described as found — marks, condition notes and all. If you would rather skip the detective work, start here.