I’ve always admired these figa lighters when I’ve come across them in my searches for Austrian-made brass and bronze. The markings have always intrigued me: “Saks Fifth Avenue” in an elegant, hand-drawn script, and “Made in Austria” in the typical sans-serif of an Austrian mark. They do not come up often, and seem to be […]
It’s not often you stumble across an item that ends up being the missing piece in helping to identify hundreds of Auböck fakes out there on the market. Well, today I found that item, and without the original red cardboard box surrounding it, I still couldn’t be sure it was fake. This item just so […]
I’m not sure how exactly I began this long strange journey, but I know it all started with this green hedgehog. I have seen these on the market for years, but something about them always bothered me. I think I have finally been able to get some proof that not only are the fish ashtrays […]
After a bit of research looking through our company catalog (which we lovingly refer to as the “Bible”), we came across a page of sketches that seemed to be called “Baroques”. We instantly recognized that the sketches matched animals we have in our museum collection. So we felt like we should put together a post […]
So you have what you think is a Walter Bosse design, but it is all-gold and doesn’t have an applied black patina. Does that mean it is fake? Not necessarily! Generally there were two factors that led to an item receiving the all-gold “fully polished” treatment. We will outline those two methods below: The most […]
The story of this bell has more of a happy ending than some of the other miss-attributions we’ve seen. Thanks to our friends Sal Robinson and Wayne Meadows for finding a copy of an original sales catalog from Richard Rohac’s workshop. We are now able to confirm this bell is made by Richard Rohac! […]
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 […]
After years of collecting we’ve developed a process of restoration on vintage and antique Bosse, Hagenauer, Rohac and Aubock items. Using a non-damaging paint matched to the exact color of the original patina, we restore items by keeping as much of the original patina showing as possible. We can also polish original polishing points if […]
