Koftgari - genuine vs. fake

[mariusgmioc]

Originally Posted by Philip

Hello Philip,

Thank you for this very interesting observation!

A possible give-away for fake/painted Koftgari might be the aspect of the domed surfaces (whether they are smooth and regular, as being made from solid foil/wire, as opposed to irregular and/or partially collapsed surfaces like those of drops of dried paint).

In any case, I guess it might be possible to identify fake Koftgari with a higher degree of certainty by examining it under 20x magnification and notice whether the gold inlay is consisting of solid gold wire/sheet, for genuine Koftgari, or is an amalgam of tiny gold grains bonded together in a base laquer (because that's what gold paint is).

Didn't test this myself though as I don't have any fake Koftgari at hand but I imagine it would work.