Hi Gang,
I've been pondering this issue quite a bit lately both personally and amongst friends. There seem to be different forms and degrees of both catagories. My feeling is that the distinction between the two comes down to one word; intent.
By deffinition a counterfeit is intended to decieve. Most likely for the purpose of financial gain or perhaps in some cases for personal "status". In the cases where the object is intended to defraud a buyer there is cause for concern. In recent years I have seen a few "genuine" counterfiet attempts. One was a "Hetchins" and three have been "Confentes". There apparently have been some Masis at one time also. The cases of Windsors being "converted" to Cinellis do exist, as I have personally seen one. I would consider that to be counterfeiting as well. The concept of "counterfeiting" a frame is somewhat stupid in the first place, since there is very little money in this market to begin with. The time and effort to counterfeit something is considerably greater than it would take to make a decent frame and sell it for reasonable profit. With the internet connecting all of us into one body; it would be VERY difficult for someone to produce say a Confente that was not genuine and get away with selling it for market value undetected. Too much is known about the few that were made and too much collective knowledge is available to ferret out any fakes. I really don't see any reason to bother; and yet a few have. The various Confente fakes were done a considerable number of years ago before there was an active group of people such as ourselves to discourage such behavior.
The Hetchin's situation is a little bit different. There are thousands of Hetchins but not all are accounted for. To counterfeit a Hetchins really seems to be folly since there are so many and they trade hands for very reasonable prices. Why on earth anyone would bother with that is beyond me. But many of you will remember the "Magnum Bogus". Someone could have commissioned that frame; and as long as it wasn't represented as a Hetchins it really wouldn't have mattered. But as soon as someone claims it's a genuine Hetchins it becomes fraud. Again, anyone with any experience could see that clinker a mile away. That one set off several peoples' alarms. What ever happened to that bike anyway, anyone know where it ended up and what it looks like now?
I'm sure there will be more attempts in the future to pass off a Windsor as a Cinelli but if it goes through eBay no doubt we will filter it out.
I am reminded of something that happened about 20 years ago when I was subcontracting to Medici after I had come back from Alaska. I was helping build frames at that time and they were also doing repaints as part of their regular business, but I was not the painter at that time. A Colnago came in from Recht in New Jersey and UPS had performed some "modifications" to the frame. Severe ones. The frame was basically toast except for the fork. Bill Recht wanted us (that being Mike Howard, Sheridan Saxton, and myself; all former Masi employees) to replace the frame as opposed to buy a new one from insurance. We took it upon ourselves to recreate the original frame since there were no "specially engraved" parts on the frame, only the fork. I scrounged up the BB shell, double taper seat stays, and the Colnago style Prugnat lugs from my stuff at home. I brought it into work and we proceeded to "make a Colnago" which we took pains to make look as original as possible. I cut out the bb shell and the lugs by hand and did the seat stay caps Colnago style. Mike built the frame and we filed it up like the old bike and it was painted and decaled as a Colnago along with the original fork. No one ever knew otherwise. Technically there is a counterfeit handmade by a few ex Masi guys. The counterfeit was much nicer than the original bike and it wasn't sold to anyone so I don't feel too bad having done that 20 years ago; but someone out there has a Colnago that was built by Howard, Baylis, and Saxton for the fun of it (aside from being asked to do so by the "boss"). It would be funny to run into that frame someday. I'm not sure if I would notice it off hand but I suspect if I randomly encountered it I could tell it was our work as opposed to Colnago. I doubt if anyone else would notice; but I remember the few subtle differances that would be the clues.
There is a trend developing in England it seems that is sort of "halfway" counterfeit by my view; unless it is disclosed by the seller of the bike. Recently I've seen a few Hetchin's that seem to be "conversions". These are genuine older Hetchin's frames that were originally straight stay bikes that are being converted to vibrant stays. The look is quite obvious to me. They also seem to have modern stay caps attached since the original double fluted stay caps and the pencil stays don't seem to be available for these conversions. Modern stays and bends are being combined with older bikes to make a hybred of sorts. A Hetchin's is still a Hetchin's, but it's not the same thing being a conversion as opposed to being an original vibrant. Hetchin's buyers might want to make sure of what they're buying since there seems to be a few of these out there. Possibly being converted as we speak. There are apparently a few other English brands that are of questionable origin but I'm not up to speed on those goings on. One of the primary benifits of our organization is that we can help one another learn about these bikes and prevent "misunderstandings" as to the origins and authenticity of the objects of our passion.
I'm tired. I'm going to split this into two parts and discuss the concept of replicas in the second installment. There are several approaches that are generally taken which I will explore.
Brian Baylis La Mesa, CA Someday I'm going to counterfeit a Baylis frame; just need for him to die first so I don't get caught.