Dear Goldstein,
Goldstein wrote:
[...] When you visit the Polin Museum next time - just ask them from where all the exhibits come from. [...]
Regards
Goldstein
The database from Polin Museum does not show what they have. It's database made by Polin, with pictures of Judaica from other museums in Poland. I wrote it. So it's not a new collection created for Polin Museum.
All these items in museums, some probably with well known provenance, are fakes made of candlesticks? With different Charlap stamps (full name / monogram) and different dates and assayer's? Why so many in this style with Charlap's mark, some with other silversmiths (mostly from Warsaw) and not a single one from Petersburg, Moscow or other Russian cities?
You have a brave theory. Somebody found a lot of candlesticks in the same style, mostly from Warsaw area, with bases not similar to common spice towers (he intended to fake), found other matching parts, created missing elements (skilled beast!), connected everything, cut flags - each little different in shape, stamped some flags and doors with the fake stamp (as I know, the flag/door is not part of the candlestick, so it was made while making fake, so had to stamp it, so stamp is fake - but you said stamps were original, but cut from candlesticks) and started selling during the years, as I see many different aquisition dates in museums or auction offers. Or maybe produced them in Poland in years after the war, to have time to spread it worldwide? In early communist time making fakes of antiques? When authorities were rather destroying antiques as memory of the "wrong system"? BTW, he was amazing skilled, as he was selling them worldwide these days, when it was difficult to send a letter abroad.
Don't you think that most simple matching theory is most probably correct? I believe in simplicity. So simple theory is that these items are originals, but for some resons you can't accept it. You are fighting with logic now.
Answer one question:
You said stamps were originals, cause it's original base of the candlestick. What about stamps which we can sometimes find on door or flags? Don't tell me that now you noticed these stamps are fakes. Originals, cut from other pieces? Fake maker should be a milioner having so much original silver to find stamps on parts having proper shape for flag/door and matching stamp on the base?
Do you really believe fake maker would make so much effort to fake a cheap item like spice tower? Made by almost unknown master? Why not better a name, i.e. Malcz, if Polish? He had to buy silver candlesticks + other parts, overwork them, buy silver, make himself or order parts characteristic for spice tower, keep the silver standard .875 in all parts (I checked), make many various stamps with different assayer's and create something not looking like typical spice tower? spending huge work and a lot of cash on it? Why not to copy existing shape, what is more simple to sell? Or, if you agree with me, that it's too much work for one fake-maker, maybe there was a group of people in different periods and places, who found out the brilliant idea of making fake in not existing shape of spice box?
Sorry, if you don't agree with logical arguments, examples shown in museums worldwide (I left most of auction houses links aside), it means that you simply can not admit to a mistake or even minimal lack of knowledge. Do not offend, statement of fact: looking on your older posts on forum, this is most likely version. It's not only my opinion, some members had already stopped discussing with you, it's waste of time. You are well protected against arguments.
Goldstein wrote:Hi madej -
Years ago when in Munich/Germany the new build synagoge was inaugurated I went there in the hope to find some old, authentic judaica from the big jewish community from the east, which I could photographe for my files. I saw only new replicas (no fakes). When I asked for the reason, the answer was: not much authentic material survived. Maybe in Poland everything was different from the rest of Europe, we only do not know it. I am sure you can explain why so many fakes come from Poland and why the museums there are full of antique, authentic judaica.
[...]
Regards
Goldstein
Yes, in Poland was different, as it was the biggest population of Jews in one country, living there for centuries. In Germany lot of Jewish citizens had chance to escape after 1933 when Hitler took control. The pressure from Nazis was coming step by step. Cristal Night was in 1938, five years to understand the situation and escape. Not under rifles, like in Poland during German occupation. Jewish who escaped from emigration were prepared for emmigration, taking valuables to include silver. In 1933-36 it was possible, later-harder. Population of Jews in Germany in 1933 was estimated ca. 500.000, in 1939 - 202.000 + 57.000 in Austria, in 1941 - 163.000 (Germany + Austria). Bibliography below. Compare it to 3.000.000 Jews in Poland in 1939. Add logical conclusion, that Jews emigrating in 1933-41 were probably quite rich, really poor had not big options, so most chance had silver items and sure they didn't have to sell silver to pay the travel, but they could take with them.
Facts: in 1941 number of Jews in Poland was 18,4 times bigger than in Germany. Jews in Germany had opportunity to escape with valuables from Germany (period 1933-1941), in Poland - not. Over 80% of Jews in Poland were killed by Germans, so about 2.100.000 people lost all they had on Polish territory. And you try to tell me that Germans and Russians took it all behind borders, particularly when big part of Germany became Poland after 1945? It's logical for me that in Poland should be incomparable bigger number of original Judaica than in Germany.
Source of data:
https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.ph ... d=10005468
[...]By September 1939, approximately 282,000 Jews had left Germany and 117,000 from annexed Austria. Of these, some 95,000 emigrated to the United States, 60,000 to Palestine, 40,000 to Great Britain, and about 75,000 to Central and South America, with the largest numbers entering Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Bolivia. More than 18,000 Jews from the German Reich were also able to find refuge in Shanghai, in Japanese-occupied China.
At the end of 1939, about 202,000 Jews remained in Germany and 57,000 in annexed Austria, many of them elderly. By October 1941, when Jewish emigration was officially forbidden, the number of Jews in Germany had declined to 163,000. The vast majority of those Jews still in Germany were murdered in Nazi camps and ghettos during the Holocaust[...]