Buyers of NW art beware: 

• At least 7 obvious fakes with Ye Olde Curiosity Shop labels have in recent months appeared on eBay and at a well-known auction-house. 

 "Ye Olde Curiosity Shop"  has indeed been in business in Seattle for over 100 years.  However, throughout that long history, they have sold reproduction and import items as well as items of genuine Native art.  Even a genuine Old Curiosity Shop label is no guarantee that an item will be native-made. And in a sad development, a recent book on the Curiosity Shop has included pictures of the various labels used over the years.  This has made it possible for the makers of fake masks and other NW Coast items to attach forged Curiosity Shop labels to their products.

At recent well-known Seattle auctions,  several items appeared with those labels.   They were obviously modern Indonesian "reproductions" or fakes; but they were listed as "Old hand-carved NW Coast dance mask" and "Old hand-carved NW Coast feast bowl." They were recognizable as common items from the catalogs of the importers; they were obviously made from common tropical woods, with the usual open-pored grain, rather than cedar, maple, alder, or any wood that could have been used in a genuine item.  (All woods used by NW Coast natives have a closed grain).  The bottom of one bowl was painted black, and the inside of the masks were stained, as is often done to disguise the non-native woods.  Neither this paint nor the "Old Curiosity Shop" label on the bottom showed the slightest sign of wear or use.  Both masks and bowls show the fake patina and incorrect usage of NW forms that are always present in the imports.   Eyes, noses, mouths, and eyebrows showed shapes that were never used by natives.  There is no question whatsoever that these items were not genuine old native articles.  

Yet all had "Ye Old Curiosity Shop" labels.

• If an item is obviously an imported fake, the label means less than nothing.  Buyers must educate themselves about the meaning of any claimed provenance, rather than taking it at face value.  Buyers should be be able to recognize fakes, independent of claimed provenance; and must learn to recognize cedar, and to distinguish it from the tropical woods; to recognize the styles of real native artists as compared to the stylistic errors of the fakes.

The manufacturers of these fakes are making hundreds of them every week.   Today it is rare that any NW Coast item found in an estate sale or antique shop will be genuine.   Supposed "old collections" are full of the fakes, which have been widely imported since the 1970's.  Many kinds of fake rattles, totems,  and masks are so common  that they far outnumber genuine Native items.

• The unwary buyer is far more likely to be sold an Indonesian fake than a real Native item.   With the appearance of forged "Ye Old Curiosity Shop" labels, that is more likely than ever.