Fake Shipwreck Items

Beware of fake shipwreck items!

Shipwreck items often are fake, unless they are offered for sale by reputable dealers/sellers.

If you buy shipwreck items from an unknown source they need to be carefully inspected by someone who has experience with marine growth. In some cases the porcelain itself is fake and the marine growth or encrustation is too. That is, the marine growth can be genuine but it did not grow naturally on the item, but was glued on.

If you do not have some minimum knowledge of marine growth at certain depths, better stay away.

There are fake items completely covered with genuine marine encrustations, where the porcelain item is almost not visible. The fake porcelain can be simple fakes, but sometimes it is just a clay body with some blue painting on it, which never was in a kiln. That means the fakers did not even bother to fire the item because the encrustation glued on were covering almost everything anyway, hiding the fake.

Marine encrustations are either glued on, or the fake items are lowered into the sea for some time, so that they get covered by marine growth. The latter may be detected in some cases if you have knowledge of mussels/clams and other marine growth at certain depths. The depth they were placed is often not that a shipwreck would be in, and the molluscs, shells, etc. at different depths are different. Thus knowing how marine growth at greater depths look like on lifted shipwreck porcelain can help. Fake items lowered into the sea are more likely covered with marine growth existing near the surface or at not far below..

I remember an item that was covered with a type of mussel found on local harbor walls and stones near the surface. This is incongruous for a s-called shipwreck item that should be found at deeper levels in the sea, usually a distance away from shore.

Shipwreck Ceramics

Shipwrecks (with Chinese ceramics)