An awful counterfeit

[Patrick Bernardo]

Based on the recent thread on beading tools, I decided to go over to that auction site and see what was available.

I stumbled across item # 141447650273.

Somebody is trying to turn around a quick $75 by spray-painting an old Stanley 'bronze' and engraving it with the words "Lie Nielsen." I looked at the menu to 'report this item,' and outright fraud is not one of the categories. Seems the site is willing to let the market sort it out? I'm sure that the seller will hide behind the usual, "I don't know anything about tools, etc." At least, I guess, it serves as a reminder to be really careful to check pictures. I can't imagine this fooling anybody who actually looks at the pictures, but if somebody were doing a drive-by of the listing, they might leap at it.


(Edited because I typed the wrong price first time around.)

[Malcolm Schweizer]

Wow. I saw that and it was a great price but I was not in the market so I did not look at the detail pics. That is a pretty sorry thing to do.

In case it gets pulled, here is a screenshot of the listing.


image.jpg

[Sean Hughto]

I don't have the LN 66 - just a vintage Stanley. I went to the listing. To me it is not obvious that this is a counterfeit that was painted or engraved. Maybe if I had ever seen a LN in the flesh it would be glaringly obvious? Just looks tarnished from here. The lettering does look sort of muddled and hand done I guess. It seems a lot of trouble to go through to make a 66 that likely would sell for (I dunno, $75) into a beat up LN that goes for $175 new, and therefore in this condition wouldn't do much more than net you an extra $50. And then when the buyer receives it and realizes it's paint and not bronze, you risk having to refund and/or getting your account suspended on eBay. This just does not add up to my mind.

[Malcolm Schweizer]

Sean, I agree- it does not make sense. They could have sold the Stanley for some decent money.

[Sean Hughto]

Here is my 66. To make it look like the one in the listing, the seller would have had to grind or fill the letting on the top of the handles as well!

[Patrick Bernardo]

That would be interesting if this turned out to be an early model of LN, and I completely misjudged it. However, the current Lie Nielsen is marked on the body of the plane, where the fence slot is, not under the handle. Also, doesn't the texture of the plane look odd? That's what made me go to the LN website to compare with the original. I don't own either, though.

From what I saw when I looked the 66 without cutters goes for $30-40. If this one goes for asking price - or gets bid up near the L-N price, it might be worth it for somebody.

It's also possible that the modification was done before the antique dealer got it. I once purchased a piece of jewelry for my wife from the 1920s. When it broke, I had an acquaintance who was a jeweler take a look at it, who verified that it was an authentic forgery from the 1920s. It had been made well enough to pass for almost 80 years, since nobody had much reason to look twice. Well, at least the diamond was real!

[David Weaver]

An email to Tom Lie Nielsen would find out of there is any chance that they had prototyped castings early on. They've had the beader for a long time, and there have been other oddballs found in the wild (derek has one of their first 140s that he got in bits and pieces). The screws on that one online look modern, I've never seen those on stanley tools.

Some of LN's very early stuff did look like it was made by hand.

[Patrick Bernardo]

I'll defer to you guys, for sure. Here I was, thinking I was outing a great crime. Now I'm not so sure. I guess it's too late to add a question mark to the title of this thread.

[george wilson]

The name is engraved so crudely it looks like a fake. It is possible that it could be an early prototype though,with the name hastily added by the pattern maker. I'd just pass it by due to doubt anyway.

The tool doesn't look painted. At least in the one picture that was posted here.

[Malcolm Schweizer]

Would LN use that hand-scratched lettering, even on a prototype? Wouldn't a toolmaker at least have a stamp for letters?

The metal in some photos appears to be bronze and in others looks suspect.

[george wilson]

Who knows?

[Harold Burrell]

hmmm...this is going to be an interesting thread, methinks. I too wonder why someone would go to all of this trouble for not so much money. Especially when that person seems to be such an established seller of antiques and such. Obviously, it is possible that they are trying to rip people off. However, it is also possible that the seller (1) picked this up from someone else, not knowing it was a fake or (2) it IS a genuine early Lie Neilsen piece. That would be cool, actually.

[David Weaver]

Would LN use that hand-scratched lettering, even on a prototype? Wouldn't a toolmaker at least have a stamp for letters?

Not sure. You'd have to have a stamp that would work on an inside curve for that. There weren't many people working at LN in the very early days, they could've pretty much done or made anything...but still, the answer would be easily had by just asking them. I'm sure TLN would remember if they did anything like that.

[Harold Burrell]

Would LN use that hand-scratched lettering, even on a prototype? Wouldn't a toolmaker at least have a stamp for letters?

Maybe we've got this all wrong. Maybe this was not made to be sold at all. MAYBE...this was indeed made by Tom's grandfather (or even great-great grandfather)...and he made it for himself...and marked his name on it by hand...to, I dunno, perhaps be able to identify it in case it was stolen by Indians or something...

Wow...

I'll bet that's what it is.

I think I might bid on it.

And then resell it here for...say...$7500 (with a letter of authenticity, of course).

[Mike Henderson]

I sent the guy a note, just in case he doesn't know any better.

I also sent a note to LN with the eBay number.

Mike