Fake Civil War Surgical Sets: due to misdirection, ignorance, or fraud

By Dr. Michael Echols, American Civil War Surgical Antiques

Buying or even selling a "real" Civil War surgical set is difficult at best. There are precious few references or "experts" to help with identification and much of what is sold publicly as "Civil War" is not. Some of the problem is unintentional because certain people just assume anything 'old' has to be 'Civil War era'.  Or misdating of a set is based on long-held inaccuracies among auction house staff and antique dealers. Unfortunately there are a number of long-term widely sold pictorial medical instrument books which have gross errors, and have never been corrected. The rest is pure and simple fraud.

Putting It to the Test

To be a true Civil War surgical antique, the first test is quite simple: the set or instruments must have existed prior to or were made during the Civil War years. If the maker of the set or instruments did not exist until after the Civil War, it is safe to assume the set is not Civil War. One can determine if a given maker was in businesss by looking up their name and business location for a given time frame.  With Google Books, this is pretty easy now.   If the maker was a designated supplier to the U.S. Army Medical Department during the War, you can make the assumption their military production during the War is "Civil War," especially if it is marked "U. S. Army Medical or Hospital Department" or some abbreviation thereof.  Maker location, dates when in business and production verification can be ascertained from Dr. Edmonson's excellent reference book, American Surgical Instruments: An Illustrated History, published by J. Norman.

George Tiemann and Co. is an example of how complicated maker name and location variations can become if the maker was in business over a long period of time or changed their company name.  The products of famous Civil War contract provider to the Union, George Tiemann, is one of the most difficult makers to determine when the instruments were made because he was located at multiple addresses over many years.

George Tiemann cutler (Pre-Civil War)

During the early years, pre-Civil War, there were several variations of the Tiemann label

• 1826 to 32: 35 Chatham Street
• 1833 to 55: 63 Chatham Street

George Tiemann & Co. (Pre-, during, and post-Civil War)

Pre-War and the first half of the War for Tiemann

• 1855 to 63/64: 63 Chatham and 44 Eldridge  (During the War for first three years)

Second half of the War and post-Civil War for Tiemann

• 1863 to 64 to 71: 67 Chatham and 44 Eldridge (During the War for first two years)

Late post-War until and after 1900

• 1872 to 86: 67 Chatham and 107 E. 28th  (After the War)
• 1886 to 1900: 107 Park Row (After the War)

Tiemann was one of, if not the largest, suppliers of surgical instruments during the Civil War.  His sets are also one of the most difficult to date because he moved to a different location on Chatham St. during the middle years of the War and used instruments from before the War in his sets.  The markings on the instruments were complicated too, as he used several versions of his 'mark' over the years and inter-mixed them as the years passed...making problems for collectors and experts alike.

Source for Tiemann's addresses: Edmonson's, American Surgical Instruments: An Illustrated History of their Manufacture and a Directory of Instrument Makers to 1900.

The second test is provenance. If the set existed prior to or during the Civil War, who owned it and how are you going to prove it was owned by an Army surgeon or a civilian contract surgeon? Odds are you cannot prove anything for 100 percent certain, but some sets were kept by families and they have copious letters, photos, etc. which may serve the purpose. Of course you also need to prove the surgeon who owned the set was present during the War, as either Army or civilian. If the set is a marked military set with sliding latches and a brass plate showing Army markings, there is no doubt about its use. (A word of caution: there are fake engraved brass plates showing up with Army markings at auction and in private sales.  Fake stenciled surgeon names and regimental information on medical chests and surgical case have been discovered too.)

Time lines

For pre-War sets, knowing the approximate creation date is very important because an amputation set from 1840 isn't likely to have been used in the 1860s. Contrary to popular opinion, the doctors who were non-Army surgeons were not often the ones doing the cutting on the frontline or in the rear Union hospitals. It would have been the most experienced Army full surgeons who did the actual cutting and not a bandage-changer-from-Boston who just graduated from a two year medical school.

Experienced surgeons would have wanted the most up-to-date instruments available and not some set brought over from England or France after the War of 1812.  For Confederate medical sets, the field is wide open and since there were no Confederate designated contract suppliers,(unlike Union sets), CSA sets are almost impossible to designate as "Civil War" unless there is extensive verifiable provenance. There are no CSA military issued sets; only Union Army sets are so marked.  Buying Confederate sets is the most dangerous route you can take to owning a 'real' Civil War set.  The odds of buying a 'real' Civil War set from a dealer who swears the set is Confederate is...well a long shot.  You better know a lot about surgery sets and have a lot of faith in the person to whom you are paying a small fortune.

Now that we have the basic guidelines about the sets, let's discuss individual instruments. Unless you have extensive experience with identification of instruments, the odds of spotting replacement instruments in existing sets is limited to you noticing if they do not exactly fit in the slots of the case (they should fit perfectly) and there should only be one makers' name on all the instruments in 99 percent of the cases. As soon as you see multiple maker names and lots of missing parts, walk on by. Of course knowing who the major and minor contract makers were during the Civil War is a big help too.  Here is a list of some of the contract makers during the Civil War:

• Martin Kuemerle
• Louis V. Helmold
• D. W. Kolbe
• Snowden and Bro.
• Jacob H. Gemrig
• Hermann Hernstein & Son
• George Tiemann & Co.
• Horatio G. Kern
• Otto & Reynders
• Max Wocher (not & Son)
• William Z. Rees
• V. W. Brinkerhoff
• Codman and Shurtleff
• Jacob J. Teufel
• Frederick C. Leypoldt
• Julian Tiencken
• Wade and Ford

(The test in using these names is to know the dates when they made a given set.  The maker label in the set will tell you the address and then you have to know the dates when the given address was in effect for the Civil War. (No one said this was easy!)  If you just say, 'Oh, so and so made this set, so it's Civil War'...WRONG!  These makers moved around often and you have to get the right address to get the right date to occur DURING the Civil War.  Again, you need the Edmonson reference textbook to determine those dates.

Faked surgical sets come in two general forms: misdirection about the actual dates of manufacture (perhaps unintentional and done out of ignorance) or outright fraud with the intention of selling something that bears no relationship to the truth. As with all antiques, your best defense is knowledge and a healthy sense of doubt. 

About the author: Dr. Michael Echols is a long time collector of American surgical antiques, not a dealer.  For additional information on this topic, please search for the web site:

American Civil War Surgical Antiques