Featured Trick for detecting fake pre-Columbian pottery

Saw this on ARS and had never heard it before. A man had paid $1800. for an elaborate supposedly pre-C. figural vessel with loads of COA type papers, all signed, dated etc. , very convincing. Appraiser tapped the rim with his ring or something, don't recall exactly, but he mentioned the high-pitch ring sound and said that meant it had been fired in an electric, high-temperature kiln, and was thus a fake. Originals were low-temp. fired in a wood-burning kiln and should make a non-ringing low-pitch sound when tapped. Maybe a "thunk?" Appraiser was John Buxton who has done a lot of the ethnic/tribal appraisals on ARS for years.

 

What if it has a hairline, it would thunk and could still be fairly high fired.

 

It's a rule out but not a rule in thing

 

I was at an auction yesterday where they sold a figurine they claimed was pre-colombian. There was documentation that it was found in a mound in Ohio. The guys behind me, who deal in that stuff, said that was impossible. Over the years I've found that fake stuff seems more common in so-called mens' collectibles. I have always avoided baseball cards, arrow points, most Indian pottery (although I will buy new horsehair pieces), etc., because I just don't have the time to learn those fields well enough to not get stung. That I doesn't mean I haven't been stung in glass and pottery but the folks in those fields seem more willing to spread the news about a fake.
Don

 

That News was on Antique Road Show last night.

 

I happened to see that one, Springfield. That guy seemed to take it OK, like he could afford to take the loss. But, PLEASE tell me if I remember the rest correctly. I wasn't keeping notes - Buxtom said the genuine version was worth over 200 grand, and the fake about 30 dollars.
Doesn't sound right to me. I maybe mixed it up. What's your recollection?

The owner kept his cool, but very obviously wasn't easy for him.

Yes, it was his ring. Like a regular guy's wedding ring. You could see it the second time he tapped it.

 

Here is the clip from the Roadshow.
TOG-
APPRAISER:
So I know you're out $1,800 and that's not a pleasant thing for anybody, and so I'm sorry about that. I can tell you that the value of this now, this would be on a retail basis, would be more in the $200 to $300 range on the decorative market. If this thing were real, I mean, this would be so rare and so unusual, I would appraise this between $6,000 and $8,000.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/roadshow/season/20/spokane-wa/appraisals/fake-pre-columbian-bowl--201502A39

 

I almost hate to mention this, but horse hair pottery isn't Native American Indian. True, it is now made by many Indian potters, but it was actually an outgrowth of the American raku movement in the 1960s among studio potters. It was widely documented in the Ceramics Monthly Magazine. Studio potters from Maine to California were making horse hair pottery long before Native American Indians widely started producing it around the 1990s.

Even so, some potters have resorted to including a little paper with their pottery, with a fabricated story of it being invented by an Acoma (or a Santo Domingo, or a Navajo, etc.) woman.

It was studio potter Paul Soldner who was responsible for American raku and horse hair pottery. It did not exist prior to that in any Native American culture.

The majority of horse hair pots found on the secondary market are actually studio pottery, made by non-Indian potters.

 

Ah, now you see why it's best if I avoid these markets entirely. In defense of the Indian potters, though, I bought a signed copy at auction because I liked the colors and learned backwards from there (and apparently just enough to be dangerous). It was never mis-represented to me.
Don