Unknown russian spoon makers mark. Maybe fake?

[klingert1974]

Hello, I purchased this set of spoons and have looked through all the books and makers mark websites and cannot find who this (BA) maker is. The kokoshnik mark says is from St. Petersburg 1908 onwards but every maker with the initials BA never worked in St. Petersburg. They all are just Moscow, Kostroma and Kalouga.
They came in a wooden box that has the Faberge name embroidered in the silk/cloth which doesn't help me figure who made them either. The spoons are 5 inches long and weigh 25gms and definitely solid silver but there is basically no wear on them so makes me wonder if are even real.
Thankyou if anyone can help. I will attach pictures below.

[Zolotnik]

Hi all -
I think it is useless to explain why you should not buy objects you do not understand. Buy first and ask later is not very clever....
Here some authentic boxes and firrm logos of Fabergé - the boxes were always made of marple wood - from my collection.
The stamps, the quality and the enamel are just ridiculous - probably made in China.






Regards
Zolotnik

[Qrt.S]

It hurts to say this but, the whole set is most likely spurious. The box and the spoons do not belong together. The printed Faberge mark is a fake. The correct font in a genuine mark is "sans serif" among some other things. Most of the "Russian made" cloisonne objects on the markets are fakes. Over 90% of objects related to Faberge on the markets are fakes. Take my advise, do not buy anything unless you know with 100% certainty what you are buying! Learn the marks etc. and you will save a fortune otherwise you will most likely spend a fortune for no reason whatsoever. This is my personal opinion.

[klingert1974]

Thankyou for replies.
I know I made heaps of mistakes buying stuff but just got carried away going on multiple auction sites and couldn't help but bid while the auction was going live. I
have studied heaps since then so have a fair idea what to look for now but was hoping 1 in a million that I got lucky on some previous bad buying, haha.
I'm too scared to ask about lots of my other stuff now. Most were bought from legitimate auction sites yet nowhere in the description did they say spurious or anything like that. They actually didn't even show a picture of the Faberge inside the box on the auction so must have known it wasn't worth showing. Totally my mistake so a good lesson learnt for future reference.

Thankyou again. Muchly appreciated from Australia :)

[Zolotnik]

Hi klingert -
most important rule if you want to buy anything: do not trust descriptions, auction houses (even the most reputed) or phantastic stories (....my grandmother was a maid in St. Petersburg Court....), just trust your own knowledge or the experience of trustworthy experts! Do your homework!

Much luck for future purchases!
Regards
Zolotnik

[Stavros]

Most probably it's not fake . Aarne, Johan Victor (1863-1934) a Finnish workmaster whose signature is to be found on enameled gold and silver articles. Mark is 'VA' in Russian Cyrillic ('BA'). In 1891 he moved to St. Petersburg to work exclusively for Fabergé until 1904.

[Qrt.S]

Forget Viktor Aarne. This is not his style at all. In addition, his enameled works are mostly made in the guilloché techniques. The shoved spoons are are made in cloisonnee. The spoons are suspicious objects as mentioned earlier.

[AG2012]

Hi,
First of all, the box is common fake on Russian market, not even pretended to be original, cheap and abundant, various lettering of makers.
Enameling is not consistent with Russian works. It takes time to tell the difference taking into account even brush strokes and overall appearance, color combination etc. Interestingly, they do not even try to copy the design of a genuine cloisonne but employ their own perception of ``beauty`` creating grotesque combinations of colors and brush strokes over enamel.
Regards