Not to Buy An Early American Dry Sink

Though Americans delight in newness, their interest in antiques continues to grow. One indication is that attendance at Manhattan's blue-ribbon, ten-day 1967 Winter Antiques Show, which opened last week, has doubled in the past decade and is expected to reach 30,000 this year. Another sign is inflation; prices in the past year have commonly risen 5% even greater if more people felt confident that they could distinguish fine pieces from fakes. Unfortunately, the amateur shopping at a seaside "gifte shoppe" is all too likely to wind up paying $50 for a $10 copy of a $500 original.

A savvy guide to fakery, Antiques You Can Decorate With, has just been published (Doubleday; $4.95), and it tells the amateur how to spot the ingenious techniques used by practitioners of the minor art of "antique manufacturing." The author, George Grotz, 44, started out as a spare-time furniture refinisher, steeped himself in the subject for 15 years, wrote several books as well as a $1 pamphlet, From Gunk to Glow, the sales of which have reached 800,000. Grotz (rhymes with gloats) maintains that modern-day "antique manufacturers" can be found not only in Italy, France and Hong Kong. There are plenty in New England and Manhattan. Mostly they are carpenters and cabinetmakers. More than a few are dealers.

Making of a Fake. What are the commonest imitations? Grotz lists 18th century and early 19th century cast-iron toys, banks and trivets, wooden signs, student lamps, Sandwich glass, Hitchcock chairs and Franklin stoves (the copies cost as much as the originals). Another popular fake is the "ancestor" painting--an anonymous portrait that the dealer sells by observing that it looks so much like the customer. As for Early American cabinetwork, the author estimates that no less than 80% of what is passed off today as 18th century dry sinks-and chests of drawers is in fact mass-produced, late 19th century "cottage furniture."

The faker strips such pieces with lye or paint remover; he refinishes them with stain, oil or varnish, sands their corners, and then "distresses" them with chains and mallets--that is, he gives them a good pounding to lend the battered allure of great age. The suspicious customer should examine the drawers of wooden pieces. Fakes are often hinged together by eight to ten machine-made dovetails; the genuine article has three to five irregularly shaped, hand-carved dovetails.

Antique counterfeiters also build cupboards from the broad boards in the attics of old houses. To detect these, buyers should check the board ends to see whether they were sawed off with an electrical circular saw, which leaves curved lines, and look for nail holes plugged with plastic wood in places where a cupboard needs no nail at all. Then, says Grotz, there are the "cute little Early American pine three-drawer chests that are only as high as a Victorian commode." They are just that, with the lower doors removed and two drawers fitted into the space where the old thunder mugs were kept.

Speculation & Opportunity. The simplest way to avoid being sold a fake, says Grotz, is to stick with a reputable dealer or else buy merchandise that has not yet become remote enough in time or expensive enough for the fakers to bother with it. He believes that regardless of its age or esthetic quality, an antique is essentially "something out of the past that reminds us of a way of life that was different from our own." Samples of Late Victoriana offer sound opportunities for long-term appreciation. Speculative buyers might also pick up pieces from the 1920s, like clear plastic beds or early plywood furniture. "A hundred years from now," predicts Grotz, "dealers will still be complaining that they can't find any of the good stuff any more. You know, the stuff with real character--like Early Plywood!"

* So named because the water had to be pumped or poured in.

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