Evening star., 1935-05-12
By James Nevin Miller.
WASHINGTON woman, latel

WASHINGTON woman, lately
\ returned from abroad, was
II examining. in the privacy of
4 \ her home, highly priced
Chippendale chair she had
purchased in England, when she
noticed tiny pellet drop to the car
pet. Imagine her surprise when she
picked it up and found it was
bullet!
After a consultation with a we'll
known local antique dealer she learned
some exceedingly interesting things
about her chair He shook 1t very
thoroughly, tapped the joints with
hammer. performed some expert
maneuvers with a screw driver and
discovered half dozen other bullets.
Some of them were buried foot deep.
And now the dealer informed his
outraged client that she had been the
victim of clever hoax. The chair,
although she had paid large price
for it, wasn't genuine antique at all
but a machinery made article that
might fool the most skilled observer.
AS for the bullets, they actually had
been shot with gun into the chair,
the idea being to simulate worm holes
and create an ancient appearance.
This particular antique" had some
how slipped by the United States
Customs But the fact isn't necessar-
lily legitimate indictment against the
alertness of our Federal sleuthS
charged with the responsibility of
keeping illicit merchandise from our
shores. For the sad truth is, as proved
conclusively by official customs records
now on file in Washington, that the
imitation of antiques has become an
art so highly developed that even con-
noisseurs are duped from time to time.
SCORES of expert European crafts
men, notably in England and
Italy, are spending the best years of
their life perfecting a spurious art
that fools our collectors by the thou
sands. The finest equipment money
can buy is used.
Working hand in hand with some
British and continental super -shysters
are a few American wholesale antique
firms. Three Yankee dealers in
ancient furniture with powerful con-
nections in Europe have been penal
lied to the tune of roughly S150,000
within the past year by customs fines.
One individual among them, world
renowned authority on antiques, who
previously had served frequently as
an informal adviser to customs Of
ficials--an artist as we'll as a dealer
was actually caught red-handed max
ing drawings of antiques" which he
planned to have made in Europe. In
Vulnerable other cases are in Federal
files showing how specifications for
Chippendales, highboys and whatnot
have been drawn up in this country
and actually built abroad, the ultimate
idea being to pass them off as genuine
to gullible collectors here.
In this connection the duty of our
customs officers is twofold Genuine
antiques-that is, works of art, artis-
tic antiquities and objects of art of
ornamental character produced prior
to 1830'-can come in duty free. So
the Federal men must decide whether
a given object properly comes under
this classification. If, on the other
hand, the object Is dutiable then they
must check Its value and determine
the duty.
Uncle Sam maintains his own staff
Of expert antique examiners and ap-
praisers. However, there isn't one at
every port. Instead our Government
follows this official procedure: Articles
of furniture claimed to be free of
duty as antiques may be entered only
at q comparatively few ports, includ-
ing Baltimore, New York. Boston,
Philadelphia. New Orleans, San Fran
cisco. Seattle, Chicago, Los Angeles
and Honolulu.
Bearing all this in mind it is easy
to understand why antiques are be-
ing faxed on such large scale.
Naturally the dealers are very anxious
to persuade the Customs Bureau to
pass their highly expensive articles
tax-free. Moreover, the official Gov
ernment stamp serves as virtual proof
of actual antiquity and therefore en-
ables the dealers to command tire
n1endous prices which otherwise would
be difficult to obtain.
Now here's a mournful yarn, freshly