Religious Bell with Engraving

I was posting a few days ago on reproductions made with slip molds, and then there is the ability with cast moldinging and EDM (electrical discharge machining) tooling to create pieces from a 3D rendering of an object such as a cast iron bank, car, etc..

When you see molds or plates transfered to one Co. to another if the piece is genuinely old, as an example McCoy pottery then we date with these changes. In the example of Audubon the plates were "rescued" from a scrap yard.

But beyond original plates and molds being in existence, the reproduction of "old looking items" or dated pieces is increasingly common. Often an old reproduction can mislead some to dating an object, and then there is reproductions of such poor quality that the pieces look distressed or aged.

And finally if the piece came from the set of a movie such as "gone with the wind", and the provenance supports that assertion, old bells can command a high price.

But the generalization that without provenance or careful examination that these items are tricky is certainly true. I see many people makke assertions about pieces as if reproductions did not exist.