This seller appears to be getting large sums for modern items.

While I cannot hold judgement on porcelains advertised I can with the cinnabar box and the so-called jade vase. The box with that interior is either new and or resin made. It is difficult to tell either way from the limited pictures. The jade vase is also modern. Tertbile carving especially the interior. Is it jade? I cannot tell from pictures. It could be, or it could be agate!

Mark

Well this is troubling: the same seller has this Samson caddy, listed as Chinese. You can see the same caddy was sold on Bidlive, but the mark has since been removed.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/113349316992

http://en.51bidlive.com/PreView/PreViewDetails/1080128

Hello MLVBS:

Excellent detective work on your part!  By coincidence I had referred in another thread on this forum only this week to the possibility that Chinoiserie manfactured in England and in France could be passed off as Chinese to unwary buyers and bidders on eBay. Edme Samson manufactured all kinds of porcelains for the emerging middle class in France during the two Napoleonic periods and some of it was in the Chinese style. See link  He was considered a forger by many, but nowadays his work is very collectible and many pieces contain various marks that he used and none of the marks, to my knowledge, copied marks from the various Chinese imperial reigns.  So unless the mark is removed as apparently happened in this case, buyers can generally ascertain the origins of Samson porcelains. I actually like some of his work and I have two lidded vases (see attachment) that were made by him. However, I knew they were Samson pieces when I bought them from a reputable New York City dealer. They were not inexpensive but certainly were not in the price range of Qianlong vases of similar size which the seller claims this item to be. Accordingly, anyone who bids on an object as offered by this seller is likely to overpay. In general, Samson porcelains are too fussy I think and are nothing near in elegance to true Chinese equivalents. The problem is what does one do about a seller like this  who appears to be misrepresenting items? It is unlikely that eBay would take any steps to limit such a seller's activities because her sales are financially beneficial to eBay. Also, by the time anyone made a complaint to eBay the item would be long sold and delivered to the unfortunate buyer.  This type of thing gives eBay and the whole field of Chinese art a terrible reputation. However, good for you in exposing this unfortunate situation.

Errol

This so-called Yuhuchunping vase allegedly with a Yongzheng mark and of  period sold today at auction for $1,745. If, as we suspect, it's a modern fake, that is about $1,744 too high in price. If, on the other hand, it is a Yongzengh vase and we are all wrong about it someone got a deal of the week and Peter should include it as such in his weekly video.

The so-called Qianlong tea cannister shown above (with the Edme Samson mark removed) closes in about 1 day and 9 hours from now. It's from the same seller as the so-called Yongzengh vase. So far it's up to about $7.00 in bids. That's a little low even for a Samson tea cannister. Perhaps, bidders are wising up!

Errol

Mlvbs Very good detective work. This is becoming interesting. I am still amazed that they do not have any negative feedback. 

Dear mlvbs,

Well spotted indeed. There is no question about it, it's exactly the same vase, but this time, the Samson mark has been scraped off its base. If you look closely at the photographs and compare them, you can see the glaze abrasion at the point where the mark originally was. Disgraceful.

I really think this is beyond words, and that Peter should stop listing on bidamount.com ANYTHING AT ALL offered by this seller. 

It seems to me that while he uses his expertise to screen out her items that obviously appear dubious, he nevertheless includes ones that seem perfectly fine. And here's what's so insidious about this seller: she does include the occasional authentic item among her various fakes and frauds. The result of this is to confuse a prospective buyer's powers of discrimination, as I have pointed out before in other threads. It muddies the water. The prospective buyer incorrectly thinks, 'Well, if item Y that she is selling is correct, as it seems to me it must be, then surely her item Z must be correct too'. No!

I think I will write to Peter privately about this, because I feel very strongly that this dealer, real name, Patricia Hannam, aka ecliptic_art, should be blocked from bidamount.com entirely. Listing her there only lends credence to her, encourages the confusion, and gives her an endorsement that the unwary prospective buyer who isn't so well versed in these matters might imagine should also extend to her fakes and frauds.

Let me encourage you in particular, mlvbs, to write to Peter at his email address, outside the context of this Forum, and direct his attention to what you have discovered. Well done, you've caught her red handed. Let me know if you do write to him, and I will join in.

Regards,

Alan

Dear Erroll, Short Dong, and Alan, thank you. It was a bit of coincidence, as I had just purchased my first piece of Samson in the form of a vase-to-lamp conversion (pic attached). The lamp had a nice finial made of a Qing era jade pendant, which I am currently having returned to its original pendant form by a jeweler. I was browsing Peter's ebay items page, and saw the tea caddy (listed as Chinese). Later in the day it was bothering me that there was something extremely familiar about the tea caddy, and it didn't take long to find it again in BidLive via Google.

To Alan - I did write to Peter to tell him I thought it was Samson, but had not yet seen the original auction (before mark was removed), so have yet to write about this to Peter. 

I agree completely that this is a disgraceful practice. Now that I have a name attached to the seller, some bells are going off regarding items I have seen and been troubled by, coming from this seller on liveauctioneers.

Best regards,

Bill

Dear Bill,

Many thanks for your vigilance, and when you write to Peter to point out what you have discovered, please let me know, and I will also follow up on it. My goal now is to seek to have this fraudulent eBay seller blocked totally from bidamount.com, for the reasons I earlier explained. Her appearance on bidamount.com in ANY form at all does bidamount.com no credit, given what we now know of her practice.

Incidentally, let me also mention to you that I suspect Patricia Hannam, the woman behind ecliptic_art, may be connected to Hannams auctioneers in some way. The reason why I suspect this is because her business address is located pretty close to the place from where Hannams auctioneers operate, and the similarity of name seems like a pretty big coincidence otherwise. If there is a link between her and the auctioneers, perhaps we should be equally sceptical about any of the claims that Hannams auctioneers make about the lots they are offering for sale, let alone about these demonstrably fraudulent eBay listings by someone who, on the face of it, could conceivably be a business partner, or connected to a business partner, in Hannams auctioneers.

Regards,

Alan

Dear Alan and Bill:

I totally agree that Peter should consider not including ANY of this seller's items on bidamount.com even if, for example,  she offers a genuine and extremely rare Kangxi item which is unlikely. As Alan points out, the mixture of a couple of genuine items with a lot of fakes is a common practice that lulls bidders into a sense of security.  Also, posting any of her items on bidamount.com increases bidders' confidence and just helps her perpetrate this type of activity. I would join you in urging Peter to ban her completely from any mention on bidamount.com. This is not one of those questionable cases where we can debate whether an item is Guangxu or Republican, for example. If, as apparently happened, she or someone else bought the item knowing it was a Samson item, scraped off the Samson mark on the foot and then presented it on a eBay as a Qianlong tea cannister, the nature of what was done should be obvious to all. Bill since you discovered this, I think you should write to Peter privately and let him know and, of course, Alan's support in this would be helpful. We cannot win the war against fake Chinese items, but perhaps we can win small skirmishes here and there!

Regards,

Errol

This is also brings the Sotheby's sticker in sharper contrast, and Circumstantial evidence suggests she was the person who placed that sticker there or her supplier is Zheng Yi Sao and blackbeard.

Even if she claims ignorance of the Samson then how can she justify her appraisal of the Yuhuchunping vase as Yongzengh if indeed she cannot tell the difference between a Samson and Chinese Famille Rose Export. 

Hi all:

The so-called Qianlong tea cannister aka a Samson tea cannister sold at auction for $80.58  (See eBay link) which sounds about right. It seems that not everyone is as gullible as we thought or perhaps they are reading the Forum pages?

Regards,

Errol

We can report her to ebay.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/help/buying/resolving-issues-sellers/avoiding-seller-fraud?id=4024

Ok friends, I have written to Peter to tell him about the Samson caddy having been originally sold on BidLive, with mark still intact.

Alan - thank you for more clearly spelling out the situation that I was alluding to with that seller's name, on Liveauctioneers. I, too, am under the assumption that they must be connected, and that it would be a rather big coincidence for them not to be. We should look for evidence that they are one and the same.

-Bill

Dear S-D,

Thanks for pointing out that we can report ecliptic_art to eBay for seller fraud. However, I'm not entirely optimistic that we will be able to rely on eBay to do a good job in pursuing the matter, even if provided with the hard evidence that Bill has collected. As you said yourself, ecliptic_art has 100% positive feedback rating, surprisingly enough, so the odds are in her favour that she will be believed, and clearly, she's a lucrative dealer as far as eBay is concerned, notwithstanding their protestations that they take seller fraud seriously. Follow the money, as they say: if they blocked her, they would be losing revenue.

That said, there's no harm, of course, in trying, and I'd far rather something be done than nothing be done at all. Maybe the initiative should come in the first instance from Bill, since he's the one who spotted hard evidence of her fraud. What we can certainly do outside of eBay is to make representations to Peter to have her blocked completely from bidamount.com.

Best wishes,

Alan

Dear Bill,

I think our posts on this Forum just crossed - I hadn't read your last one as I was typing mine.

Ok, right, I will also email Peter tomorrow to back up what you say and to ask him to consider blocking ecliptic_art completely from his site.

Alan