But in this case, the details can tell the story. Learning to recognize the signs of a reproduced item can help you "see" the fakes more easily. First, you must understand how a piece is reproduced.
The process of reproduction begins with a genuine vintage piece. This piece is used as die to cast a plaster mold. When this mold is filled with slip, it creates a smaller, but exact duplicate, of the original piece. Well... almost exact. And that "almost" can help you in your quest to find fakes.
The process of reproducing a piece does more than make it smaller. The duplicate piece does not have the same depth of "detail" the original had. The more intricate the detail of this piece, the more obvious this becomes. Also, most fake manufacturers wear their molds out by pouring them literally 1000's of times. Each time a mold is poured, some of the detail of the mold is compromised. As you can imagine, by piece 999 the casting will be nearly smooth. Below are some examples to consider.
 Click image for larger view |
 Click image for larger view |
 Click image for larger view |
 Click image for larger view |
||
This genuine McCoy Mammy cookie jar has "hard" detail. Looking at the larger image, it is easy to see the sharp creases in the skirt and shirt and the face is very "dimensional". |
This is our replica of the McCoy Mammy. We are VERY careful to preserve as much detail as possible in the jar, but looking closely, you can see some loss in the shirt. It's unavoidable. |
This fake McCoy Mammy is from a mold that is badly worn. Notice the total lack of detail in the shirt, and the face is completely smooth. The shoulders have "grown" given her a football player appearance. | Wow! This poor thing looks ill. This mold is beyond gone. I'm surprised the casting came out at all. There is just literally nothing left but a blob. |
||
 |
 |
||||
This fantasy piece, the McCoy Goldilocks shows the effect of bad mold making and overpouring on the detail of a piece. Notice the bear is totally smooth, and the fingers of Goldilocks are non-existent. The McCoy mark on the bottom of the jar is raised because the name is literally scratched into the bottom of the plaster mold. |
This genuine Regal Goldilocks Cookie Jar shows the detail that should be in the bear. You can see that the colors are also quite different. Just look at her fingers! |
||||
 |
 |
 |
|||
Gorgeous Genuine Hull Red Riding Hood. The hair has 'hard" detail, the nose is pert, the fingers defined. This is a good example of authentic detail. |
This fake Red Riding Hood has a reasonably good paint job. The hair is far too smooth, and the face is soft, but the features are still there. |
This fake Red Riding Hood has a very poor paint job. The facial detail is VERY soft, and the painting is coarse. The gold accenting is terribly overdone. |
|||
A Technique to Watch out for: Fake pottery makers know that the detail on their pieces is often very poor, so they will resort to visual "tricks" to try and compensate for it. Beware pottery with outlining. That is often a very strong sign that the piece has less detail in the casting than it should. See the images below for some examples. |
|||||
This jar
has VERY obvious fake crazing and the outlining on the piece is a compensation for the
lack of detail. Note, the colors on this piece are inaccurate as well.  |
|
||||
