Suspicious (and Probably Spurious)
NAO
Marks
Up to now, one of the strongest points recommending NAO to
collectors has been that
its "under the radar" status has made it relatively immune to
"seconds" and tampering with the mark (either through authorized and unauthorized discount
outlets or by amateur sellers), counterfeits, and other problems to which the core collection has been prone over the
years. But I suppose it was only a matter of time...As consumers have become
more aware of the NAO brand and as collector demand for it has heated up - especially
in the UK - NAO was bound, sooner or later, to attract the attention of
scammers.
So it is that, only very recently, there have begun to
surface some alleged NAO items that
look "wrong" to me for various reasons having to do with anomalies in
the mark and/or the modeling. I'm running an article about this development here
because these items provide an opportunity for collector
education toward developing a discerning eye for genuine items.
The first item (pictured below with its base) is a boy with
lamb that is marked NAO. The style of the lettering is Grecian, as is characteristic
of older marks, and is not particularly easy to reproduce. Still, there are several things "not right" about the mark, beginning
with the blue color (as if a counterfeiter had heard a lot about the
famous "Lladró blue" mark and hadn't actually realized that the NAO mark was
first impressed and later stamped in a dark brown, not blue). However, it could
also be that an impressed mark was "colored in" by an amateur photographer to
make it show up better in the picture. Nevertheless, what makes me think
there may be an intent to deceive is the absence of "Made in Spain" (or, later,
"Hand Made in Spain") that
appears in all NAO marks, even the oldest impressed ones - a finer
point of marks authenticity that counterfeiters (who are often ill-informed
and not particularly bright) wouldn't necessarily have known or taken the time to
find out. [9/23/07 Update: When I first saw this mark, I thought the blue
color alone was enough to disqualify it as genuine. However, just this week,
I purchased two early NAO models, both of which are genuine (i.e., actually
catalogued), and both had the first NAO backstamp, but in cobalt blue - the first time I
have ever found or been able to confirm the mark in this color. However, the mark on my items also
included the necessary country of attribution ("Made in Spain").]
A picture of the entire base of the figurine
in question. The mark, as it turns out, was done on very early models in
cobalt blue though it is most typically seen as a dark brown. But where's the "Made in Spain," found unfailingly on all Spanish-
made pieces that are marked at all - even the ones with no maker's mark?
Looking from the mark to the figurine itself (at left), we see a model of a boy with a lamb - a favored early
subject done in multiple forms in all the Lladró brands. (For comparison
purposes, see, in the NAO catalog on this site, NAO #177, Shepherd on Style. The posture is virtually identical
to the item pictured at left, but, though it's difficult to tell from its
"thumbnail," the quality is much better on the catalogued #177.) The first thing we might
note about the item pictured here is that it is uncatalogued. An uncatalogued item with a suspicious
mark is always a red flag; manufacturers of counterfeits are typically
not the most competent artisans in the firmament, so they try to avoid making
direct copies of known items that can be easily idenitified as fakes by
comparison with an original. I must say, however, that counterfeiters usually choose
clowns or other popular and more expensive themes in order to leverage their risk, so it's odd
they would have chosen a pastoral theme in this instance.
The picture of the item in question isn't particularly
sharp, but it's probably still sharp enough to show that the facial modeling is
not up to the usual quality of NAO. Nor is the modeling on the rest of the
piece exceptional, although I give the artisan(s) points for the separately articulated hands
and the ears on the lamb, as less competent manufacturers usually don't go to the
extra trouble.
To recap, the subject matter and the style of the lettering
in the mark would be factors in favor of concluding that this is a
genuine NAO. But the lack of a country attribution ("Made in Spain") and the
modeling quality (including facial detail) make it
at least questionable. I should also stress here
that I am working from pictures and have not actually seen the
item in question. Therefore, I am not in a position to make a definitive judgment
as to its authenticity, so it must suffice to say that I find
it merely "suspicious."
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