Back Escher stone???

[hatzicho]

Great post, Peter. What are your thoughts on the stone that the OP posted?

Yeah interesting stones – indeed! I found a picture of the first stone above that chess1 posted in my archive, in a folder that says „Sham’s black Escher“.
Nothing else but two pictures of the labelled stone, but I am pretty sure to remember that Sham contacted me in his old Forum -Razor and Stone- about that potential black Escher and we talked about the stone there. Don’t recall if he says it was his stone or if he only posted a picture he found elsewhere…. Unfortunately I didn’t make backups or copies of posts in these older days.

Anyhow, both labels look autentic to me. The question is - why should somebody fake stones with an Escher label, stones that are in no case typical for Escher hones. If someone fake a green or yellow stone I would understand that. But an unknown black hone…. Did someone designed a label on the computer and print it out, than destroy parts of the label just to glue them to an unknown stone. Or did someone loosen an original label from an original Escher to glue it on an unknown black slate…. not really plausible.

The stones themselves are black slates. I have dozents of them – not knowing from which quarry they are. In Germany, especially thuringia but also other regions, we have a lot of slate. Slate for building, roofs, pencils, etc. Hundrets of quarries around. The whetstone business was very small compared to other slate industries. But quarrying tons of slate and dealing with slate products, it was easy to cut some hones and also sell them in older times, if demand was there.

Well labels and stamps are nice to have – but as you all know and we have discussed and stated many times here, we shouldn’t pay to much attention to them. The performance makes the hone not the label. Here is one of my story but I am pretty sure this may sound familiar to one or the other.
When the JNAT hype started I was also infected. Because knowing nothing about the mines, strata and typical appearance of the stones I bought quite a lot of Maruka stamped hones, hoping to have here the ultimate proof for a good JNAT. After having checked the forum threads and contacted several friends and experts in Japan, I found out that most of the stamps were faked. Angry about myself I put the hones into a drawer hoping to forget them. But after a while I put the one and other out to simply play with them a little and found, that some are really good hones. So I rubbed away the fake stamps and from this time on, the hones weren’t useless fake Marukas but simply good JNAT finishers. That is all that counts. And simply need to pay some more attention on the reputation oft he one who sells the hones - before I buy them.

 

[Gamma]

If I go into a jewelry store and buy a Rolex, that watch better be an authentic Rolex.
Even if a counterfeit watch keeps perfect time, and 'looks' perfect - Paying large for the real deal means I deserve the real deal.
I do not deserve, or want, a fraudulent item, regardless of how it looks, or seems to perform. If I knowingly buy a fake, then that is another story. Presenting that fake as real is fraudulent though.

Performance, actual or perceived, is only part of what makes something what it is. For a very large number of people in this world, making an investment takes a lot of factors into account and authenticity is very high on the list most of the time. Provenance like labels, boxes, paperwork, stamps, etc - those factor in heavily when they're authentic. Having owned a rather large number authentic Hatanaka Mearuka stamped stones, and compared them to many fake Maruka, Hatahoshi, and Maruichi - and similar - fakes, I'll say that even when the counterfeit stones were serviceable, the counterfeits did not compare favorably to their authentic counterparts.

This is not to say that the authentic stamped stones were beyond reproach in any regard. IMO Escher hones with lables and Thuringians with different labels or Thuringians without any label all fall within the same zone. Whether or not a counterfeit Escher gets into that zone is unknown. If someone paid $500 for one, and they lost their investment because it is a fraud, how it performes really doesn't matter. Certainly, not all Maruka stamped (real ones) were razor grade finishers. Still, IME, fakes certainly did not keep up with the real thing or hold any value in sale/trade situations. So while some counterfeits are not 'worthless' in a usability sense, some were absolute dogs, and they were all were worthless in other ways, and the loss of investment was not insignificant. Perceived value matters and when someone is defrauded their perceptions are invariably tarnished. If you spend money on something you should get what you paid for.

A stone can be a good finisher but that is absolutely not the only thing that matters. Not to me anyway.
An item's history, back story, origin, etc - that, and more, it all matters a lot and it's a part of what the item is. Certainly the vast majority of good finishing Jnats were never stamped, but some were and that select group can be of special interest to some people. No one has to agree with it, but it is a fact and eveyrone's opinion is their own to have. If someone wants a particular thing for whatever reason, then so be it. A label might not be important to person A but if person B is paying money for that label then there's a good chance that person A's opinion is irrelevant to person B.

I'm the first person to tell anyone to not buy any stone based only on a stamp or a label. If it's a labeled Escher, a real one, you pretty much know what you're getting so that's that. But with other stones like Jnats, coticules, etc - it's a 'judge it on it's own merits' sort of thing. A lot of people stress over stamps and stuff but the bottom line is that not every stone from Nakayama was a razor finisher and not every stone stamped Nakayama is actually from Nakayama. Some people gush over getting a La Vienette Coticule but they're not all the same. Same for any vein IME. It's a case by case basis.

As for photocopying an Escher label not being plausible, it happened and that failed transaction was well documented. The seller's negative feedback from that buyer was purged by the auction site after a year or two, but I kept a screen shot of it for my own personal records. I will not post it or share it here.
As for other methods of deception, swapping labels, etc; imo, for some people, anything is plausible when $$$ is on the line.

 

[David]

Did someone designed a label on the computer and print it out, than destroy parts of the label just to glue them to an unknown stone. Or did someone loosen an original label from an original Escher to glue it on an unknown black slate…. not really plausible.

Sadly, as Keith said, it’s not only plausible, it happens more than you think. If you see an Escher for sale on eBay or social media that’s smothered in sealer, better make sure you know the seller very well, or ask someone in the know their opinion.

 

[kcb5150]

Yes someone caught a scamming clown who bought a no label thuri from them and it magically grew one and sprouted back on the bay years ago. I think it is the same Keith is referring to. It absolutely does happen when the label can add a multiple of value to a rock. Hobby is slowly being inundated by bad actors. The ones selling re-etched blades and trying to pass them off as real is another that disgusts me. And if you are on a place like facebook, always make sure you get an image with a slip of paper signed and date stamped of the item and pay in a way with protections because the same pieces of trash who like ripping ppl off in places like the case knife groups have invaded the razor sector. Just be on guard.

 

[hatzicho]

Well I am absolutely sure that fake-labelling in general exist and is plausible. I have seen that from a well know UK seller once. But that wasn't my point. We were speaking about very unusual black thuringians. Nobody would glue a coticule label on that stone.... If somebody would fake a thuringian, he would choose a well known green or blue stone. But an unusaul black one? The fact that we are discussing here exactly that subject in this thread proofes that this doesn't make a lot of sense. I am sure if the stone in the o.p. had been green or blue, this thread doesn't exist and the one who owns the stone, surely believes he has an authetical Escher.

 

[Gamma]

Fake labelling does happen.
The fraud Escher sold on an auction site, the one I mentioned above was, actually, a very dark black slate with a very bogus label.
One of the two black stones in the OP above here was in a YT video. In that clip, it was called out, by the owner, as a fake Escher.
Now it's re-presented with a brand new fantastical story.

At the risk of seeming to be redundant, I think the OP stone with the ridiculous bubbled sealing is a fraud.
The other one is suspect too IMO. Someone sealed the stone to protect the label but then they beat the living heck out of the sealed surface? Not likely. Plausible, yes. But it's not typical of actions taken by someone that wanted to protect the stone to begin with. Anyone is welcome to believe what they want though.

That said, many things that are real don't make sense. How many times has someone read a story about a person that spent their life savings on the equivalent of a handful of magic beans? Too many. Thinking that someone won't try to make a ton of money on what seems like, to knowledgeable people, a ridiculous scam is short sighted. To a lot of fraudulent sellers, one big payday is a lot better than many little paydays. Greed being the motivator behind the thought process.
FWIW, blue/black yard slate is a lot easier to find than just about any other type of slate. So I, personally, wouldn't raise an eyebrow over a fake so-called 'rare' Escher.

Reality, often, including scams, won't make sense when viewed from outside looking in. The auction-site buyer that bought the fake Escher and left scathing feedback had zero clue about black/blue/green/yg/etc, label, authentic/fake, etc. They saw 'Escher' in the title and paid the money. I'd bet he was not the first buyer to be scammed by that seller, or the last.

In reality, there are people owning Jnats that don't know Nakayama from Tsushima, There are people with Coticules that don't know LL Hyrbrid from from La Grosse Juane. And even though it doesn't make sense, stones that aren't those things are sold with those names all day long every day on the internet. As it is said - Caveat Emptor .