Milo Fauxman

Fake-n-bake!
There are Lots of things I would call pet peeves. I'm a hot mess of pet peeves, one of them is stores selling items as a particular designer when they know they aren't.
Milo Baughman is the new hotness and has been for a while, his pieces are only going up in value. Which means: Bring on the FAKES!

Charles and Ray Eames being the Power Couple of Mid-Century design generated a lot of misleading buzzwords, EAMES ERA being the biggest and most used. But we've seen some really bad doozies from people trying to cash in on the mid century buzz. My favorite has to be the time a lady at the City Wide Garage Sale/Flea Market (I don't get the Flea Market tag, but they use it in their ads so whatever..)
Anyways, little old lady tells me quite earnestly that the fiberglass chair I'm looking at is a Howard Eames. "Reeeeeally?" How fascinating, I didn't know Herman Miller's father (brother?) had married someone in the Eames family. Freakin fascinating. And how much is that late 60s space age fiberglass resin coated chair mfg in Texas and sold as architectural furniture to mall foodcourts across America? Oh, 1200. Well that's reasonable! What a fool I was to sell 6 of them for 300 each. I coulda been rich as midas!
I had 6 genuine Howard Eames in my hot little paws!

Now, I may sound like a total bitch for ripping on this poor sweet thing, but A. I've seen her around, she's not poor nor sweet, and B. I think if you are going to sell something for over a few hundred at least get a clue and pretend to care about what you are selling.

Then there is willful misrepresentation. While I get a sad little laugh out of people selling crappy Krueger chairs as Eames Era Shell Chairs, I get steamed when I see someone selling something as one thing when they know for a fact that it isn't.

Craigslist in any city is a good one for a large cross section of solid examples.
There are the ChromCraft Vladimir Kagan chairs for 500. each, Kagan never designed for Chromcraft. There are the Hollywood Regency designed dressers, H-R is a style not a Designer.
And yesterday another dealer sent me a classic craigslist posting: a godawful 70s maple colonial tea table thing listed as, kid you not, Dorothy Draper tea table.. What are you people smoking?? And gimme some.

Here's a classic example of how wistful thinking, turns into pigheaded stupidity, into resignation and acceptance and finally to willful misrepresentation:

Last year someone outside of Houston was selling a "Milo Baughman Chrome Sofa" for 1200. Then a month or two after no one was interested, they contacted me. I pointed out that while it was a good looking sofa, it was not Baughman and the price (even reduced to 800.) was not for me.
Then a few weeks later a dealer in Houston contacted me, he had a similar story, the Faux baughman, hence forth to be known as "the Fauxman" was being offered to him for 600.) He also informed the owner that it was not a Baughman, probably made by Pace, but not everything made by Pace was designed by Baughman and this piece wasn't.
Then the guy widened his net, he had had 4 (he had contacted a few in Dallas too) reputable dealers in Texas turn him down and tell him is wasn't a Baughman. Now he was contacting dealers out of state, still clinging to either the hope that we were all out to screw him, or we were out to screw him. I don't know.
So a few months after I had turned him down a dealer in Washington DC who I stay in touch with emails me and tells me there is a good looking sofa near me that I ought to look at. It's the Fauxman, still being touted as a Baughman but with missing tags due to reupholstery sometime in the 60s (Baughman didn't get heavily into chrome until the 70s, now the price is 400.
And now I'm simply sick of hearing about this thing.
Dealers across the country have been offered this thing, and it's not a bad looking sofa in the least, but it's not a Baughman and it's not something any of us would sell as such.

4 months later it pops back up on Craigslist. It's the sofa that won't GO AWAY. Now it's 300. A three hundred dollar sofa with chrome trim and newish upholstery is a good deal and it gets sold relatively quickly.
It's been a YEAR since I received the first email about this sofa. It is now sitting in an antique mall in North Texas, marked MILO BAUGHMAN Sofa, $1200.

I have to admit my jaw dropped it was too sad and sadly hilarious to be anything but... well... sad.
Jumpin Penguins on a pogostick.

But then we're seeing this a lot. Milo Baughman-Like, In the Style of MB, Era, Style, Design, Type....
The list goes on.
What to do? Well, if the price is in your range and it's what you were looking for and you like it, buy it.
But, if the price is for the name and there is no label or documentation, reputable dealers will recommend due diligence. Do a websearch, most of Baughman's designs are well documented. This is what a reputable dealer will do before placing an attribution on an item. It's part of what we are paid for, we spend hours researching, wads of cash on reference books and back catalogs of certain mfgs, we stand by our items.
Its a matter of pride to say, I specialize in this.

We have a return policy and it goes like this: All Sales Final. HOWEVER, we do back up our items attributed to designers. If I sell you an "Unmarked Jere" and it turns out it was offered in the 76 Sears Catalog, I owe you a refund and an apology. And by the by, very few Jere pieces are unmarked.

Designers cost money because there are 50,000 'eames era and eames style' items for every one Eames designed piece. And I am not ok with selling an item as an Eames Design when it isn't. I think it's lying, I think it's dumb, and I think my own reputation is worth more than the sale.
Sad but true, part of the reason so many higher end mid century dealers shy away from referring to themselves as "vintage" dealers is due to the large number of mis represented items in the Vintage category on craigslist, ebay, garage sales , estate sales and flea markets.

Some people simply don't care. Once while chatting with a friend in a mall I noticed a footstool in her booth, marked "Eames Era Footstool 49.00" as casually as I could I said, "you know, they had those on sale at Target about 6 months ago.. " She says oh I know, but it's so cheap no one will care.
Um. Well, for starters, they were on sale for 26.00 new, and then for middles, you're supposed to be miss mid-century, and for finishers, screw price, you know its new and you don't care?
Gee, hate to be a stick in the mud, but guess what? you're an ass!

On the other hand, I know someone else who gets great vintage and mid century stuff all the time, sells everything a discount, does a wide range of items and she has no problem selling Ikea pieces on the rare occasion and I think for her it's perfectly fine. Why? Because she always marks the item "NOT VINTAGE, IKEA" Which I think is a smart and up front way to go about ya business.

I digress, back to Milo Baughman Fauxman..... I'm not going to publish here all the info I've gathered on Baughman, I paid for it and it's not like people are going to pay me to share it. That old adage that 'knowledge is power' is a good one.

Keep in mind that just because Baughman designed for such and such company, does not mean that he designed EVERYTHING for that company. Usually the tag will say something to the effect of "Thayer Coggin - Designed by Milo Baughman" there is little room for doubt.

There are several companies Baughman NEVER designed for, 2 being Henredon and Lane. Lane and Henredon both copied Baughman's designs but never copied the Quality, which is what Baughman is all about.
There are several places on the internet that have lots of images of lots of Baughman pieces, one being 1stdibs.com. I recommend 1stdibs.com because a dealer will lose their spot on 1stdibs if they don't know their business backwards and forwards and their reputations are EVERYTHING to them. They have no room for willful stupidity.

Also, there is a lot of talk about the Baughman Elipse rocker, it's a pretty little chrome thing, two ovals supporting a padded sling. These were attributed to Baughman a few years ago and were selling in the 2500 to 3k range. Some savy dealer found the original Stendig ad for the rocker proving it was no Baughman.
It's a good looking rocker, I own one and they're comfortable too. But it's not a Baughman.
Stendig was a great company that did numerous high quality originals and "in the style ofs", there were even a few "name brand" companies that used Stendig as a mfg at one time or another.
We have 3 Stendig pieces in our collection at home and they're keepers one and all.
There is no shame in owning a copy. I'd love to have nothing but originals, but we have a large and varied group of friends and we want them to sit wherever they like. We're also not fabulously wealthy enough to skim all the best pieces we find for ourselves.

So don't misunderstand, buy all the period copies and in the style ofs you want, just don't over pay for one!