yup. without a LOT of unscrupulous wholesale buyers to import this nonsense, these makers would have a harder time getting their work onto the US market, i think.
it’s not like the counterfeit market for luxury brands - i mean, would i carry a knockoff louis vuitton bag? chanel? gucci? not really, bit only because that kind of glam isn’t my jam, not because they’re knockoffs. knockoffs of a multi-billion dollar luxury goods company doesnt bother me near as much as knocking off individual craftspeople and literal starving artists.
this is part of the reason i started collecting older-style vintage pieces instead of the modern works. in my opinion, and to my eye, it’s exponentially harder to fake real wear and old stones. with some of the the modern aesthetics and makers these days are too hard for me to tell what’s legit and what’s not, without buying artist-direct.
@Jemez2 re: casual tourist buyers reselling as NA…to be clear regarding that particular seller, he does not represent any of his pieces as NA, he just sells “jewelry”, some of which happens to be NA (he buys from a lot of sources). All his jewelry is displayed together in the cases and he tells you what is if you inquire to see a piece. He knows me because I am a regular and he knows I come looking for NA pieces and we talk a lot about the changing market and costs. I’d imagine most of the buyers don’t know or care what it is. Just to clarify in this case that it isn’t that he’s trying to get NA knock-offs specifically but rather that he laments that people don’t appreciate good quality enough to pay for it and buy the bargain instead and he isn’t buying much from NA artists anymore (which is bad for me ).
But you are right. People try to guess what it is and that’s exactly how stuff ends up attributed incorrectly, because they as sellers don’t know or care to do their due diligence. Wish it was a requirement that the piece is marked permanently with country of origin; it would prevent a lot of bad sales.
Also agree with you that it is a lot worse that they’re ripping off individual artists. I also tend to buy more vintage stuff for similar reasons.
As someone who has to go online to forage for Navajo jewellery, I deeply appreciate all these comments. I’ve seen far too many instances of attribution to a particular artist based on only 1 or 2 initial stamps — often when they are laughably dissimilar to that artist’s actual mark according to reputable sources.
Until we have up-to-date, comprehensive reference works that list not only hallmarks (easily copied) but examples of each artist’s work (can be copied but it’s a lot more effort), most of us online buyers will have to either buy from reputable sellers who can provide true provenance (ideally the artist themself), or do enough digging so that at least we can make an educated guess. If I see a piece I like that’s attributed to a known silversmith, I’ll search for other proven examples of their mark(s) and craftsmanship so as to do a proper comparison with what is being claimed to be theirs. This is much easier to do with some artists than with others, but it’s worth the effort, I think.
I would be delighted to buy directly from the artists, incidentally, but you have to know them (and know that they are reachable online) as a precondition to finding them. If there’s a directory of NA silversmiths/jewellers with their own online shops, I’d love to be pointed to it — or to individuals, for that matter.
Some of the artists have online sites, for example, Milford Calamity (who I bought a ring from at the Eiteljorg). I believe I still have emails of a couple artists that I have bought work from, and some are on Instagram (Reggie Mitchell). I would try Google to see if you can find those that you are interested in potentially buying from.
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