About three weeks ago, I blogged about an Abraham Lincoln flag that had sold at auction for $1,225. It would have been a bargain at that price, had it not been a fake. A real one like it would have sold in the $5,000 range.
The fake Lincoln flag that has sold twice on eBay this summer.
The flag had sold earlier in the summer in the same price range from the same seller, but mysteriously reappeared for sale a couple months later.
I had contacted a couple Lincoln collector/experts and both agreed that, while the flag was very deceptive, it was most certainly a fake. Several similar ones had turned up in recent years with the same stenciled black ink letters. The flags themselves were old, a factor that made the flags particularly deceptive, but the stenciling was not.
The day I posted the blog, I was contacted by a member of the American Political Items Collectors group saying he was the buyer, and would like to know who my experts were who thought the flag was a fake. Once he had contacted them, he told me later, he contacted the seller to say the item was a fake and he would like a refund. Everyone crossed their fingers and hoped for a happy outcome.
Recently, I got this email from the buyer: “All turned out OK with the Lincoln flag…the seller from NC indicated he had the flag for some time and locals he checked with said it looked real…but when I indicated I was an APIC member and that Lincoln experts from APIC said it was not old printing he refunded my money.”
Isn’t it great when a story has a happy ending? Let’s hope the flag doesn’t reappear on eBay.
Charles Keefer I frankly am amazed. Seems like the seller honestly didn't know it was a fake. My faith in humanity has just been boosted. October 3rd, 2012 at 8:47 PM