Another heads up on an Escher ???

Referring to Item number:380239932191, I've been watching this here and was looking at it more carefully tonight when I noted that the label says use water or oil and it doesn't say Escher on it anywhere. :eek: Compare the photos below with those in the auction. These are pics of a bona fide Escher label. It and all of the many I have seen say to keep the hone away from oil. They also say to beware of imitations and to make sure the trademark and the signature are on the label. The hone in this auction may be a perfectly good one, and may even be an Escher, but if it is I'm surprised there is no Escher signature on the label. :shrug:

If you look at the very last picture it says Eirgetr Schutzmarke Registered trade mark. So unless Escher sold a different line of stones with a similar label I would also assume this to not be a true Escher.

The listing has been removed, so which one of you guys bought it before I could get my hone porn?!

Still showing up in my ebay watched items Kelly. Try an item # search for 380239932191. The seller is the one who must have sold a dozen coticules and other hones and always says about her father, "He had this one wrapped in a barber towel in his sanitizer cabinet and only to be used by him!" That fellow must have had more hones than a quarry wrapped in towels in his barber shop. :)

Dang, nice catch, Jimmy! I almost plunked down some good money on that one. It's a copycat stone and might be worth something just for that fact alone, but it definitely does not look like an Escher, now that I see the differences. Wow.

I've never seen an Escher label extend over the side of the hone. I've never seen an Escher label with four languages on it. It might be a great hone. It's just not an Escher. The manufacturer did not commit any fraud as using similar color schemes is common. The seller has sold enough hones to know better. The seller was simply hoping to capitalize on ebay buyer ignorance.

I wonder how many Escher labels are counterfeit? That's a market waiting for a scammer.

Actually, using a similar color scheme to cause confusion IS illegal -- it's called trade dress infringement. For example, you can't put together a hamburger restaurant that looks exactly like a McDonald's but is missing the word "McDonald's" and the Golden Arches. I work in this area, so please take my word on this.

If this was a product that was in production today, I'd say that the company selling it would have some real liability for trade dress infringement. It's not just the colors -- there's also the drawing style, the typeface of the words, the words themselves.

And of course it might be an excellent hone too! It's just funny to see old products having to fight off pirates just like new ones.

Well that is no doubt why the bona fide Escher label stresses that the signature denotes the genuine article. As far as labels, I have some Eschers, and have seen others, where the ends of the label extend over the ends of the stone. I've not seen one extend over the sides. The labels are usually even with the sides of the stone IME.

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Originally Posted by JeffE

Actually, using a similar color scheme to cause confusion IS illegal -- it's called trade dress infringement. For example, you can't put together a hamburger restaurant that looks exactly like a McDonald's but is missing the word "McDonald's" and the Golden Arches. I work in this area, so please take my word on this.

If this was a product that was in production today, I'd say that the company selling it would have some real liability for trade dress infringement. It's not just the colors -- there's also the drawing style, the typeface of the words, the words themselves.

And of course it might be an excellent hone too! It's just funny to see old products having to fight off pirates just like new ones.

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This is a vintage item from Germany. The laws there and at the time may have been different.

Of course -- and all of these companies have gone out of business or been acquired by others long ago, so it's not like there's an actual legal dispute here. I was just saying that, if these were two current products sold in the US, there would probably be a claim here for trade dress infringement. It's a cool area of law, if you get a chance to look into it a bit.

hah, I love, it jeff - lawyers being useful, and finding the law *interesting*. I dig.
and jimmy, you make me laugh, "They SAY to beware of imitations!" And they are right! Total scammers, these hone makers. Almost certainly its a Thuringian nearby - seemingly made for export mainly (I bet the German is jsut there for authenticty-appearances sake), where people are more likely to be fooled.

I think ebay should allow people to post comments on listings, like "this is overpriced!" "this is a fake!" . obviously you wouldnt have to heed them, and the seller could respond to them.

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Originally Posted by Utopian

I wonder how many Escher labels are counterfeit? That's a market waiting for a scammer.

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yikes maybe best not to put that thought out there....but, speak of the devil, doesnt this one make you wonder? a little too good to be true? Vintage "ESCHER" WATER Razor Sharpening Hone/Stone,7.7" - eBay (item 260620265878 end time Jun-19-10 18:46:11 PDT)

Even in this forum of knowledgeable people many Thuringians are called Eschers despite the fact that they were marketed by someone else, kind of like Coke vs Pepsi. I bought a great Thuri a couple of years ago, a natural combo to boot for 1/2 of what a comparable Escher would have cost me, Just because
the seller is ignorant of the difference does not mean that this stone is a fraud, it may be a very good stone to be had at a decent price.

Are you are doubting the stone because of the appearance of the label being so crisp ? I have one in pristine condition that was sold somewhere around 1905 based on the address of the hardware store stamped on the outside of the box. The labels, bottom and end, are pristine and the hone still has the "gold medal award" ink stamps on the honing surface. The Y/G I recently sold also had mint end and bottom labels. So they are out there. There are other characteristics of Escher stones that can only be learned through experience with seeing many of them. This one looks like the real Mc'Coy to me. :)

yeah, Jimmy, the label. and I would bet it probably is one of those amazing survivals, but it did give me pause.

and nun2sharp: that's all fine and good, but there IS a reason you pay a premium for eschers - the guarantee. sure, some vintage thurries might be as good or almost as good, but not ALL. but this guy was claiming it was an Escher and it sold for an escher price ($400).

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Originally Posted by Mijbil

yeah, Jimmy, the label. and I would bet it probably is one of those amazing survivals, but it did give me pause.

and nun2sharp: that's all fine and good, but there IS a reason you pay a premium for eschers - the guarantee. sure, some vintage thurries might be as good or almost as good, but not ALL. but this guy was claiming it was an Escher and it sold for an escher price ($400).

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Now we are referring to the stone in my original post in this thread. The one with a label designed to be mistaken as that of an Escher but without the signature. I have seen a stone like that come up before ..... maybe a year ago.... with the same label. An Escher look alike, dark blue hone, and use with water or oil on the label.

Matter of fact I posted a thread about it at the time with the same caveat. Anyhow, I bid on that one and it also went for a high price, higher than I was willing to go. Whether that is because someone thought they were getting an Escher , or like me , they just wanted it as a hone collector is a question .... but an irrelevant question I suppose. I would like to try that hone but I wouldn't be willing to pay an Escher price for the privilege. :)

I have an almost identical hone in an almost identical purple box to the one in the opening post.

It was sold by Stukenbrok Fahrradfabrik, IIRC the world's first mailorder firm. Their catalogues fetch megabucks on ebay.

Hone is not as good as my Y/G Escher.

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Originally Posted by Mijbil

yeah, Jimmy, the label. and I would bet it probably is one of those amazing survivals, but it did give me pause.

and nun2sharp: that's all fine and good, but there IS a reason you pay a premium for eschers - the guarantee. sure, some vintage thurries might be as good or almost as good, but not ALL. but this guy was claiming it was an Escher and it sold for an escher price ($400).

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Seeing as how the company has been defunct for some time now, I have to ask, what guaruntee? Correctly labeled or not it is still caveat emptor. I understand what you are trying to get at, but either way it is still a gamble, even among the different Eschers(many) there are huge differences.

See, what you really need here is just consistent terminology to refer to several different things. All of the different things have value for most people here, but we get caught up in the inconsistent or ambiguous use of language, and that is what causes the problems in my estimation.

If I can be so bold as to suggest some common terms to use:

"Escher-labeled": a stone that has a label attached to it, and the label actually says Escher or has the little cup and "E&Co." on it

"probable Escher": a stone that has a portion of a label attached to it, and what's visible is consistent with other Escher-labeled stones but the label is ripped or damaged in such a way that the Escher symbols are not visible anymore on that label OR a stone that has no label but comes in a box with an Escher label attached to it

"alleged Escher" or "claimed Escher": a stone with no label and no box but where the seller has some good-faith, disclosed reason to believe that the stone is indeed an Escher (such as a well-known seller or third party has identified the stone as an Escher or a label fell off or was lost while in the seller's possession)

"Escher-like": Thuringians and other natural hones that come from the same region, but there is no claim by the seller that the stone was actually sold by Escher

Even with all of these terms, I still would not know how to describe the stone at the top of this post. I think the seller is representing it as a "probable Escher," some here have characterized it as an "alleged Escher," but personally, I would think that it rates no more than being "Escher-like". At least we can all use similar terminology for our disagreements!!

IMO, all these labels look fake to me. I don't know why but they seem whiter than the original ones and of a different textured paper too.