Think you bought a real bargain from Ebay, an antiques fair, or auction house? Think again…… This guide to avoiding fake antiques comes to you from a group of highly experienced dealers, with 75 years of collective experience, who know their stuff. Not only do we buy and sell, we also work on antiques and have been doing so for twenty years, so we literally know them inside-out! Read on and become educated… not conned!

We have been inundated with requests for avoiding Fake & Reproduction Tea Caddies on the market!

1) Inlaid furniture and boxes.

First of all, any skilled person can adapt and re-inlay a boring, plain-looking piece of Furniture or wooden Box to appear much more interesting .

There are many companies out there selling hundreds of different brand-new inlays such as Shells, Fans, Urns and Prince of Wales feathers, which are just a few examples. These are sold to the Trade for restoration or for simply inlaying modern pieces of furniture. However, unscrupulous ,or uneducated & inexperienced, Antique Dealers are selling original plain Georgian or Victorian furniture & boxes which have new inlays to make them look more appealing to the eye, to appear to be older, and therefore more expensive, than they truly are examples of these have been seen at some prestigious fairs across the country!

My answer to all of you thinking you may be able to purchase a bargain is be very careful its very easy to fall into the trap of trying to purchase something cheaper and yes there are Bargains to be had , but you have to ask yourself the question when a true piece should retail at several thousand pounds and you buy it for several hundreds who has done well out of this!! My advise is buy from a reputable Antique Dealer (not always someone with a great feed back!).By doing this you get genuine invoices and a guarantees of a real heirloom. Also you are building up a relationship with the Dealer so when you go to make another purchase or simply some advise they are always very helpful and a good discount is sure to be offered when a return visit is made!

Fruit Tea caddies

Fruit Tea Caddies are extremely rare and very expensive, so SURPRISE,SURPRISE! The market is now flooded with reproductions.
Unfortunately, some of these are very good & difficult to spot by the un-trained eye and until you have the object in your hand its very hard to tell.

WHAT TO LOOK FOR:
1) Originals must have Steel / Iron hinges, lock plate and escutcheon. The hinges are not always screwed - they are secured with steel pins/nails, the same as the lock and the escutcheon. The lock is always morticed into the caddy, so you should not be able to see the lock on the inside-edge unless the wood has worn away. If that’s the case, because it’s a mortice lock, there will be no back on the lock and you will be able to see the hole where the key goes straight through. The locks in these caddies are different to all other boxes , they do not have a lock pin for you to locate the key into - instead the key has its own pin which goes straight through the lock & out the back until it stops on the back-plate. To find a caddy that has its original key is also quite rare, the keys are solid steel and have no hollow in the end unlike most keys.2) When the fruit caddies were turned, they would have had holes in the top and bottom so that they could be spun on the lathe. These should show on the inside and possibly the outside. However there is an exception: there is not always one in the top. You will always find them in the base of the Tea Caddy and these should be plugged , but with age these are sometimes missing which we believe does not detract from the piece or affect its value, but you should be able to see a wooden thread.

3)The base of the Caddy should be slightly inverted not completely flat and generally have a leather-type paper to the base.

4)On the inside rim of the Caddy, you should be able to see three or four pin holes which match the top to the bottom. These are for hollowing-out the Caddy before being turned into shape. By putting pins around the rims and pushing the piece back together, the rest of the Caddy could be turned into the shape of a fruit.

5)The interior very rarely has all its original Lead lining. In most cases, you should be able to see slight traces of the lead. The reproductions we are seeing generally all have lining, usually by way of a silver paper or baking foil, and some are even being lined in segments. But some examples we are seeing lately are so good now unless you have the object in your hand its very difficult to tell, and examples of these have been seen at vetted fairs, major auction rooms and dare I say it the usual famous auction site!

To see a genuine Apple, Pear, Melon please view our website inventory under section
" Tea Caddies".

Victorian & Georgian Style reproduction Tea Caddies!!


Tortoiseshell, Ivory & Mother of Pearl (common reproductions)

There are many Reproduction Tortoiseshell tea caddies on the market and like Fruit Caddies, some are very good.

WHAT TO LOOK FOR

1) Most commonly-reproduced shapes: the first one is a small single Tea Caddy with a bow front, bevelled edge, plinth & ivory bun feet. These also usually have a shaped ivory escutcheon , and the colour underneath the Tortoiseshell is very orangey - this is common in all reproductions.
Another common one is a typical Regency shape: slightly bombe shape which steps in at the top and has a dome top. This style is now also being sold with a Shagreen (pale green shark-skin) veneer.
The least common shape is again typical Regency, but this one has a Pagoda top, is waisted with a plinth and has ivory feet. They are inlaid with floral mother of pearl and are by far the best on the market.

2) Hinges: they should be mortice stop hinges, which go straight into the carcass and when opened the lid will not fall straight back, you should not be able to see any screws at all. The ones being used on all the repros are made of brass and are nothing like the originals! Examples of these can be seen on the following page.

These caddies all have an aluminium foil lining. If you were to remove this, you would find the boxes are made out of ply-wood!! We know this because unfortunately we were ourselves fooled by them when they first came on to the market some 8 years ago.

Ivory:

There does not seem too be many on the market but examples we have seen have been made with Piano keys which stand out and are obvious. The others again are very good but they all have this very fake foil lining and they always have a False lock which means they cannot ever be locked.

With all Tortoiseshell and Ivory it takes a very skilled person to work with these products and the craftsmen making these in their times were at the top of there Trade. Most of these Tea Caddies were made into complicated shapes are made with thin carcases showing their craftsmanship at its very best. Therefore the locks and hinges had to be different unlike the other box hinges and locks these were a lot more delicate and thinner. The Boxes are also inlaid with fine silver wire or pewter and edged in Ivory,Tortoiseshell or Horn.

My answer to all of you thinking you may be able to purchase a bargain is be very careful its very easy to fall into the trap of trying to purchase something cheaper and yes there are Bargains to be had , but you have to ask yourself the question when a true piece should retail at several thousand pounds and you buy it for several hundreds who has done well out of this!! My advise is buy from a reputable Antique Dealer (not always someone with a great feed back!).By doing this you get genuine invoices and a guarantees of a real heirloom. Also you are building up a relationship with the Dealer so when you go to make another purchase or simply some advise they are always very helpful and a good discount is sure to be offered when a return visit is made!

If you would like to see examples of all these fakes please vists our website section "Guide to spotting fakes"

All the best,

Mark Goodger