Monthly Archives: February 2018

Common Walter Bosse Fakes – Dachshund Bottle Opener

Posted on February 5, 2018 by Modern Vienna Bronze

We’re not sure where this little dachshund figurine came from but it sure is cute! These are often attributed to Bosse but are NOT made by him. Though he did work with un-patinated polished brass it was mostly early in his career. It took quite a bit more finishing work to get a high-shine finish. Working with black patina over brass and picking your highlights was actually an easier process and would hide casting issues much more easily.

This is another item we wouldn’t necessarily deem a fake but more of a similarly modernist styled item. We’ve seen this dachshund pop up mostly around Europe and Austria so it was most likely another Austrian maker working in the same period of the 60s. This little guy works as a bottle opener and knife/spoon rest and is always unmarked. It’s also pretty common and would bring about $35-$45 depending on condition.

Posted in Bosse Blog | Tagged bottle opener, fake, knife rest, real vs. fake, vintage dachshund, Walter Bosse, walter bosse fake | Leave a comment

Common Walter Bosse Fakes – Brass Fish Ashtray & “M.I. Germany”

Posted on February 5, 2018 by Modern Vienna Bronze

We’re not sure who started the rumor that this is a “Walter Bosse” fish ashtray. This guys is not as much a fake, but is more of an original by another artist working with blackening brass. They are most often found in Europe so we’re thinking they might be from another artist working in Austria around the same time. The style is definitely more realistic and heavily detailed, unlike Bosse’s work (Bosse mostly worked in a simple modernist style, with simple holes or dots for eyes). These fish ashtrays often seem to have a grey or greenish tint to the patina, which was the result of not sealing the patina properly or letting the object sit in the acid bath too long. These fish are never marked.

Don’t let all the listings out there fool you! This is NOT a Bosse. We’ve even seen these listed for $500 on 1stDibs as designed by “Walter Bosse for Hagenauer”. Bosse never worked for Hagenauer, they were competitors! Sellers often want to make the item their selling to seem the most valuable or rare so they’ll attach as many famous names to it as possible. These ashtrays are fairly common and come in 2 different sizes, 1 large and 1 smaller. The largest is pictured above and the smallest below.

UPDATE 3/20/2021
I recently got a tip that there was a fish ashtray out there that actually had a marking on the bottom. I finally found one and snapped it up so I could do a post about it. I think we finally have an attribution/artist for these! The marking on the bottom of this ashtray says “M.I.Germany”. I imagine the “M.I.” might stand for “Made in” as in “Made in Germany” but it’s kind of a strange way to typeset it. It could also be the artist’s initials, so I don’t want to discount that theory. So for now, I’d say we can attribute these fish ashtrays to “M.I.Germany”, whether that be an artist’s name or workshop. My hunch is that these ashtrays started be attributed to Walter Bosse because of all the green patina/verdigris hedgehog ashtrays that are on the market. As I have stated in previous posts, I have a hard time with those sets and I generally view them as fake and not authorized by Walter Bosse.

Posted in Bosse Blog | Tagged austrian brass, authenticating, authentication, black patina, fake, fish ashtray, vintage, Walter Bosse | Leave a comment

Common Walter Bosse Fakes – England

Posted on February 5, 2018 by Modern Vienna Bronze

Some of the most common Walter Bosse fakes out on the market right now are a collection of items from England. Almost always unmarked, the most common items are giraffes, horses, firehorses, dachshunds, donkeys, cats, gazelles, kangaroo, ducks, geese, and elephants. Sometime in the 1960s–’70s, a company in England started making copies of a few select Bosse models, and even went so far as to try and copyright them. We’ve seen a few marked items, and they are most often hand ashtrays and corkscrews. You can even find a patent number on the bottom of some of the items. After doing a bit of research on one of these patent numbers, we found it was associated with a generic casting company in England in the ’60s. They were most likely making these items on the side to make some extra money.

Is my item an authentic Walter Bosse or a copy from England?
Though some of the items are direct copies of Bosse’s work (like the firehorse, elephant, and donkey) many are not Bosse’s work at all. In the case of the firehorse, the English fakes just have the tips of the mane and tail polished, and not the whole mane or tail. These are also slightly smaller as they were most likely cast from a Bosse casting, not the original master. Similar to the Taxco fakes out there, these items were most likely imagined by an artist working for the casting company in the style of the items taken directly from Bosse. These English castings can be identified by their shiny black painted surface, which chips easily. They were not familiar with Bosse’s patina process, so they used black paint instead.