Making fake advertising signs seems to be something of an industry in India.

My wife has a liking for Pfaaf sewing machine signs but a quick look at EBay shows many of them coming from India these days.

Strange that so many advertising signs from a German company would end up in India!

Joseph

Now at least six different seller names are selling the Zenith signs from the same city in India. I checked the negative feedback on one and it said, "Fake." Also, they do not accept returns. I spent some time on the phone today and they are being investigated by a special group at ebay.

Since day one, counterfeit sales of CDs and DVDs has been rife on ebay.

the beat goes on...
Greg.

I bet that there's a seller in NJ selling them too

I just checked ebay and there are no Zenith signs for sale from India finally. They were using several different seller names and India locations.

They may have realized that they can get a lot more for gas/oul/auto signs as there are plenty of those at big prices.

There are plenty of them right now.

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R ... n&_sacat=0

.

Wow, I'm not a sign collector but it is a shame to flood the market with so many knock offs. It looks like they've copied just about every collectible sign!

I wonder how difficult it is to recognize it as a fake?

Tim

Fairly difficult if you don't know what to look for. Even the best reproduction signs leave clues and/or inconsistencies which makes it easy to recognize them as reproductions.

This one out of New Jersey, from a well known seller, sold for $390.00
It's a hand-painted FAKE sign. Lol
https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R ... Complete=1

THIS SIGN IS 13 INCHES X 19 INCHES AND VERY HEAVY. BOUGHT AT AN AUCTION , SO I DON'T KNOW THIS SIGNS HISTORY...


Here is a question for y'all.
â–¼ Fake or real?
https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R ... Complete=1

Greg.

It has all of the indications of being original. It has rust all over, rust stains, it's peppered with rusty spots all over the surface, and the edge has been bent with almost no porcelain left intact. Not exactly high selling points for someone who goes through all the effort of making a fake sign specifically for resale. No faker would ever go to this extent of forced aging in order to make such a sign look old because they would never want to take the risk of diminishing it's value and salability. Fakers tend to be very cautious in how extensive they age their fakes.

If that is a fake sign, that's the most "vintage" looking fake sign I've ever seen.

I notice there are a few ebay sellers selling repro and/or fake radio brand signs. There's been several RCA, GE, Sylvania and others I've seen all with nearly-identical dimensions. The ones I have seen are not being sold as antiques/originals and I figure their target audience is people who want a cheap repro to put on a wall as decoration. If you punch in different radio/tv brands and look for signs you can find a variety of these out there.