Identification

The misleading “Gaillard Paris” stamp (updated)

VFC

VFC


I have some updates on this situation.

As of May 2020, at least two pieces with the suspect Type 2 stamp have re-appeared on eBay and Etsy under different seller names. The listings now omit the claim that they are Gaillard. Please see the Updates section at the end of this post for more information.


Original post, March 13 2020

There are two virtually identical “Gaillard Paris” stamps that I see on copper pots and pans for sale on Etsy and eBay. They’re hard to tell apart, probably intentionally so. I call them Type 1 and Type 2.

My assessment is that items with the Type 2 stamp may not be genuine Gaillard. Type 1 appears on pieces of consistent 1930s-1940s Gaillard styling and quality; Type 2, by comparison, appears on pieces that range widely in styling, quality, and apparent age. Based on the examples I see, I believe Type 1 is a genuine Gaillard mark but Type 2 is not. TJFRANCE has previously noticed this issue and has posted a strong statement about it on his website (update: he added examples).

I learned to tell the two stamps apart when I noticed that the letters of “Gaillard” and “Paris” are aligned differently in each version. I can show you what I mean with these examples from my collection. (Click the photos to see them close up.)

Type 1

My opinion: Genuine Gaillard, 1930s-1940s

Type 2

My opinion: Unknown origin

The misleading "Gaillard Paris" stamp The misleading "Gaillard Paris" stamp
  • P lines up with edge of G
  • R lines up with first L
  • P lines up with A
  • R lines up with second L

The Type 2 stamp is often inexpertly applied: it’s mis-struck with doubled letters, and/or so forcefully applied that it deforms the copper or leaves an additional imprint from the frame of the stamp. This amateur technique is another warning flag that the stamp may not have been applied by Gaillard.

The bottom line is, do not be misled by this Type 2 stamp. I do not think it is a real Gaillard mark. If you find a piece of copper with this stamp for sale online, consider it for its innate qualities — a stamp doesn’t change a pan’s thickness or condition or how it will perform for cooking. But do not be misled into thinking that you are buying a collectible Gaillard: It is most likely not genuine and, perhaps most importantly, not worth the inflated Gaillard price.

I speak as one who fell for it: Buyer beware.


Important note: There is a third “Gaillard Paris” stamp with smaller letters that I assess to be genuine. This stamp is smaller overall with narrower letters that are closely set. I believe this stamp represents genuine later-era Gaillard from the 1960s-1980s. Below is a visual comparison of all three stamps.

Type 1 (Genuine) Type 2 (Unknown) 1960s-1980s style (Genuine)
The misleading "Gaillard Paris" stamp The misleading "Gaillard Paris" stamp Flight of Gaillard Windsors

For examples of pans with this narrow-letter stamp, please see my Gaillard saucepans and Windsors.


Updates

March 22: Reader Alarash has shared some photos of a poissonière he purchased from the seller in question with the Type 2 stamp. He notes that the pan was stamped in two places, which I have never heard of before. You can also see a square outline around the stamp and distortions in the copper around it, more indications that it’s not a maker’s mark.

 

March 22: TJFRANCE amended his original statement on this matter with more examples — take a look if you haven’t already seen it.

May 21: Please be aware that some items have been moved from the original seller to other stores on Etsy and eBay. It may be difficult to trace all the items with Type 2 stamps, particularly as it appears that the original seller is moving them between stores. I’m grateful to eagle-eyed readers who have spotted them. As always, my suggestion to buyers is to ask about stamps and require clear photos of them. Reputable sellers should have no problem supporting their listings with straightforward information.

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61 Comments

  1. Fantastic research VFC! I agree about the third stamp too. I see people who are selling their copper in their own homes or businesses and they can give me the history of the piece. It is always reassuring when they say ‘This was used by my Mother/Grandmother/ Head Chef’ or other first hand provenance. I will keep my eyes open for other examples. FC

  2. Thanks for the troubling post. The double strike “type 2” is on a saute pan I recently and happily purchased to add a Gaillard to my battery. The pan is very nice, has all the characteristics of a heavy, well-made tinned copper pan, but now I realize it is likely a fake. Clever mimicry.

    1. Phil, I’m sorry to be the bearer of this troubling news. But your pan is still a lovely pan — the stamp doesn’t change its innate qualities. The harm in my opinion is if you paid a price premium thinking it was Gaillard, or bought it with the expectation that it would maintain the collector value of Gaillard.

  3. Thanks VFC for your research, photos and write up about this misleading stamp. I noticed these pieces and wondered about their providence.

    1. Hi Sus — I think your instincts are right on. As I write this (March 2020) there are quite a few items for sale online with this stamp, and that’s another anomaly.

  4. Your through investigation is appreciated. I was uncertain about the legitimacy of the mark until I saw an eBay listing for an unrestored marmite clearly showing sand marks about raised “Type 2” letters and clean copper at the deepest part of the strikes – parts that should be filled with the grime of time. The marmite was dovetailed and, if stamped, should have presented with the old Jules Gaillard or J. Gaillard w/ address hallmark. A graver clue that this is a forged hallmark is that it’s now appearing both on obvious antiques (e.g., charlotte molds) and vintage pans marked “MADE IN FRANCE”. There’s no doubt in my mind this mark is fraudulent. I’m heartbroken over this greedy endeavor, the lack of respect for the magnificent Gaillard legacy, and the ruination of truly lovely antique and high quality copper that was already valuable and collectible.

  5. i think this is misleading statement and from rival sellers trying to put others out of business these statements are from copper sellers and from people who think they no everything and should concentrate on there own businesses ,i have studied the photos and the evidence they try to show is incorrect the photos are taken at different angles photo shopped to change the angle and distort the photo ,if they had worked in the copper industry they would know that the same punch stamps can leave different impressions on different grades of copper sometimes double stamped if the machine is set on low pressure
    i am a copper seller in France and have some of these pans they are not fake these same people think they have sole right to selling copper in France and i have had threatening letters from some of them to try and put us out of business it wont work tg

    1. Thank you for entering this discussion.

      To research this post, I surveyed eBay and Etsy and found 32 items with the Type 2 stamp. All 32 are from the same seller. The email address you provided with your comment appears watermarked on photos for one of those items.

      I looked at those listings today and in each one the close-up photograph of the Type 2 stamp has been removed. This looks like an effort to conceal the stamp from potential buyers.

      Your own actions condemn you.

  6. VFC- Mimicry, or fakes, abound in this world, always have, always will. Please advise how, and I can attach a photo of my pan’s stamp, and perhaps verify that it is a “Type-2”. BTW- I see this Gaillard copper post is getting heated up.

    1. Hi Phil! I’m sending you an email that you can reply to with photos and questions. Thank you!

    2. Hey Phil! I took a look at your photo. It looks to me like the genuine narrow-letter version of Gaillard stamp that came right *after* the Type 1 stamp (as shown at the end of my post above). The pieces I’ve seen with that stamp are 1960s-1980s era, and I have no reason to doubt the stamp’s authenticity.

      1. VFC- What a nice revelation! Many thanks for your sleuthing, and a truly informative web site. So double-strikes might be relatively common; perhaps more for your research. Looking forward to learning more. All the best, Phil

        1. You’re welcome, Phil. Yes, multiple stamp strikes do occur — it’s not by itself a reason to question the stamp (or the pan). I’ve learned that I have look at the whole pan to make my assessment of its age and provenance. I’m glad you’re getting interested in this stuff — keep looking and learning!

  7. I’m not a seller or affiliated with Vintage French Copper, you’re decision to tag one of your pieces on eBay with “Vintage French Copper” reveals your ethnics.

  8. If the seller is listing their pans as authentic Gaillard, why have they removed all photos of the Gaillard stamp? Would a potential customer pay a premium price for a Gaillard pan if they are unable to see the actual stamp?

  9. Nobody with a clear conscience would hide Gaillard stamps on his pans, especially if he wants to sell them. On the contrary, he would be proud to be able to present them.

    1. Martin, I agree. The stamp is part of the identity of the piece. Knowingly to conceal it is to mischaracterize the piece to potential buyers.

  10. Justin france, you could enrich the discussion and contribute to the clarification of the problem if you would show everyone interested the Gaillard stamps on the pans you offer. Of course, photographed by yourself at the right angle and without subsequent image processing. Thank you.

  11. Can I urge everyone to view any potential purchase where a premium is to be paid because of maker or provenance to be doubly careful and if the photos don’t back the vendor claims to keep a cool head and walk away.
    We can expect to see the eBay seller in question to open a new account under another name and of course the pans that have been sold will circulate in the market particularly when buyers realize that they have been duped and want to offload. Now that the Gaillard stamp is becoming regarded as suspect we should expect to see marks of other important copper manufacturers being applied to pieces. Please let us know all know if you spot one.
    Has anyone notified eBay that a vendor is selling counterfeit goods as they usually take action eventually?

  12. Roger, thanks for this warning. As buyers, we can’t control what sellers do, but we can control what we buy. I’ve learned the hard way what to look for and which sellers to trust and I offer my experiences on this site. But I encourage all of you to keep looking and learning and to ask questions. The more good buying choices we make, the more we shape a healthy vintage copper market, and that helps all of us — buyers and sellers alike.

  13. Bonjour à tous,

    I still want to reassure everyone.
    With the exception of this very specific case, there are, to my knowledge, no false stamps of copper pots for sale on the internet.
    In none of the big brands we like.
    There are a lot of variations in stamping within a single manufacturer.
    We can very well find a very strangely small or very strangely large stamp in brands that we know well and have the thought to say that it is a fake because we had never seen this.
    But I assure you, there are exceptions. Tests by manufacturers that lasted 6 months, for example. A broken stamp temporarily replaced by another for a short time. A stamp affixed by a partner for a very precise series of pots, etc … the reasons can be numerous.

    This seller should consider himself happy because since selling this type of counterfeit product, he has not had a problem yet.
    My role is to inform and not to denounce.
    I saw this in August 2019 and since then, several dozen products have been put on sale.
    All wear the same stamp, regardless of their time of manufacture. We can clearly see it even if for certain pots he tried to camouflage for the last sales.
    Among its sales there are some real GAILLARD pots but most of them are fakes.
    None, I mean no brand has affixed the same stamp on its copper pots for 100 years!
    He have to be awfully naive to think that it wouldn’t be seen!
    You should also know that some of its products have already been sold by some of its buyers. And of course, they sell them as GAILLARD PARIS pots without knowing that they are false.
    Currently its online stores are closed. But not all! It remains with his famous fake GAILLARD PARIS stamps for sale.
    I see that he reacted in a post above.
    So if he reacts it is because he knows that we know. And despite everything, he still has fake GAILLARD PARIS on sale. When I say on sale, it’s today, March 18, 2020.
    He should not abuse our kindness at this point.
    I repeat, for the moment he hasn’t lost much.
    But if he continues to take us for idiots, it will not go as well for him.

    Again, I assure you, don’t see fake stamps everywhere now!
    It is the worst thing that could happen to lovers of culinary copper pots to think this.

    I repeat, this is the only example I know of this day. One seller, one fake stamp.
    Hoping not to discover others in the future …

    To all Copper Lovers! T.J

  14. I purchased a Gaillard copper fish poacher in August 2019 from ebay seller: treasures-from-france. Maybe this seller is related to Justin france?

    When the pan arrived it had a dubious mark. In fact, it was marked twice, which is unusual in my experience. I own many Gaillard pieces and it was not shown that the poacher was marked twice. Since there was no precedent for counterfeit marks, and because the return shipping to France is so expensive, I didn’t take it up with ebay at the time. After seeing this thread today and TJ France’s site, I wrote ebay today and they’ve outlined a path toward a resolution. I would happily post images here but I don’t see a way to attach them.

    This whole thing is a real pity. I can understand how fraud could be tempting. However, it’s not worth it in the end, and cannot be erased from the history of one’s personal actions.

    1. Hi Alarash — Sounds like we’re in the same boat. I’ve bought five items from this seller, three of which have the Type 2 stamp. I’m surprised eBay has agreed to get involved — I’ve assumed so far that this would be difficult to prove.

      I will email you and you can reply with any photos you’d like to share.

      Incidentally, for others: I did collect all the photos from my survey of online listings with items with Type 1 and Type 2 stamps. If you’d like to see them, email me at VFC at vintagefrenchcopper dot com and I will share a link to the page where I compiled them. Again, the importance of this is that the detail photos of the Type 2 stamps seem to have been removed from the listings by the seller, but I still have them.

      EDITED TO ADD: In light of TJFRANCE’s post listing the pots he suspected were fraudulent, I’ve gone ahead and made my own page available. You can see it here: https://www.vintagefrenchcopper.com/gaillard-stamp-investigation-gallery/

  15. Hi Alarash, it makes sense to ask ebay for help. I had to do this too. Since I was able to counter incredible lies with objective evidence, ebay quickly decided in my favor. The seller had to reimburse the purchase price. Good luck!

  16. VFC -don’t know it it was intentional, but the investigation gallery link you posted does not work. Phil

    1. Oh — sorry. I had it set to Private — I’ve changed it. Please try again!

    2. Good evening how are you ? Yes, I also have a lot of private pages waiting. I opened the second part of my page and now you can see all the photos. For many months I waited to know how far he could go. The incredibly stupid way of stamping pots in completely unrealistic places, on pots of all ages, by seriously distorting copper sometimes, trying to always do it up the pots because it’s the simplest. And sometimes directly in the rounding like on the big roasting pan. So many faults, imperfections, details that show a total ignorance of copper pots. It is a job so badly done that I am ashamed for him. He worked as a child who tries to imitate the signature of his parents. A 2 year old child.
      What a misery to see such a massacre! He cannot imagine the harm he has done to people who are now discovering this deception. But I guess as long as he got the money from these people, nothing else is important to him. Regards, T.J.

  17. I am horrified and speechless how many fakes there are! Why doesn’t anyone file a complaint? These shops have to be closed.

  18. eBay told me they will do nothing due to >30 days since the sale and to open a dispute with paypal. PayPal stated since 180 days have past they will do nothing. I explained to them that counterfeit items are difficult to discern and it takes time for an online community to come to the realization that they’ve been deceived. So far the response sits at this position, but I have asked for reconsideration and making a special exception for this exceptional circumstance, since so many of us have been scammed. We’ll see how PayPal chooses to respond. At the moment, the most recent response I have is below:

    “I can understand the concern present here and I apologize for any inconvenience occurred on the transaction. At this time, since the transaction took place outside of the 180 day timeframe, we do not have any ability to dispute the charge as it is not covered by our buyer protection programs. The only advise that I can give at this time would be to reach out outside of PayPal for a request for a refund. We would not be able to support the dispute, however.”

    1. Alarash, I’m in the same boat. I have bought five items from this seller — two are lovely genuine things but three are pedestrian items with the Type 2 stamp for which I almost certainly overpaid. But those purchases are well outside the 180-day time window and so my only remedy is to engage with the seller. Given the tenor of his comments upthread and his evasive actions with his listings, I am not optimistic that a dialog would be productive.

  19. It is disgraceful how they procrastinate when it is obvious that an investigation is necessary. When an advertisement is reported the complaint should be taken seriously even if no purchase has been made.
    Would it be possible to to post this information with photos in the form of an advertisement selling a guide to genuine antique copper with a BIN price so absurdly high that no one will buy but which might attract attention of potential copper buyers. Obviously no particular seller could be identified but it might encourage eBay to act to protect their trade. At least buyers would be aware that fakes exist.
    Roger

  20. Hi,
    I just noticed all this has gone from eBay and the seller has no listings at all. When did that happen?

    1. Hi Roger. It appears that within a few days of this post the seller put his eBay store on hiatus. Some listings have been ended, while a few others are still up with a notation that the seller is unavailable. Items from the seller’s Etsy store have been moved to a store with a different name operated by the same seller. The listings are still missing the deleted close-up photos of the Type 2 stamp.

  21. Hi, the ebay shop “treasures-from-france” again offers several Gaillard pans. All pans were intentionally photographed in a way that the stamps cannot be clearly identified. Any other seller would present these stamps as optimally as possible. The dealer J.T. does not allow interested parties to inquire. Any communication normally used on Ebay is automatically blocked by the configuration made by the dealer. Everyone may make their own judgment.

  22. “Treasures-from-france” also offers casseroles from Jacquotot and Dehillerin. Here the dealer shows photos with clearly recognizable stamps. In contrast to his alleged offers from Gaillard, where the stamps are only hinted at, he does not hide the stamps in his sales offers if he is convinced of the authenticity of his goods.

    1. All sellers should provide clear photos of stamps, with particular attention to detail if the item is represented as a specific brand. Why would a seller be willing to do this for only certain items and not for others?

  23. Doing good business is perfectly fine. But the conditions have to be serious. In particular, if someone requests over $ 1,000 for a roaster, he should have clearly visible and thus verifiable evidence to support his statement that it was made by Gaillard. Photos are the main sources of information for online offers.Reputable providers are happy to provide additional photos if the photos already posted do not allow a reliable assessment. Unfortunately, the dealer mentioned has configured a general request block. However, you can find his email address in the imprint. Anyone interested can check whether they receive meaningful photos of the stamps in this way.

  24. Thanks VFC for the update. I noticed this seller under both treasures-from-france and dillysantiques had reposted on Ebay and Etsy. I guess he hoped that we’d forget about him. And such a shame to devalue beautiful old copper even if they were unmarked and not Gaillard.

  25. I see that in some of his newer “Gaillard” offerings the seller is taking jabs at the “all knowing” TJ (France). Maybe TJ is not all-knowing but he sure knows a whole lot more about French copper than most other people.

    1. Yep, those item descriptions are a treat. I find it difficult to comprehend why an eBay seller of collectible items would taunt the very collectors most likely to buy them.

  26. NEWS: The shop on eBay is currently withdrawing all its offers. Maybe my eBay request to check the offers was useful. I hope it stays that way!

  27. Happy too early. The pans with misleading “Gaillard Paris” stamp are back online. A presumably real stamp is clearly visible, all others are only hinted at.

    1. Hey Adam — The seller is re-listing them using other eBay and Etsy stores and that makes it difficult. I don’t think it’s possible to track all of them and that’s exactly what the seller is counting on.

    1. Hey Elizabeth! I think this listing is for items with the genuine Gaillard stamp. A double-stamp is not necessarily a warning sign — it’s the alignment of the letters in the stamp that distinguishes the genuine stamp from the questionable version. I like and trust this seller — bunss_fr — and I assess that the stamp on these pans is genuine. But good for you for scrutinizing the stamp — because of this mess we now all have to be careful.

  28. Genuine Paris Gaillard copper pans are a rare find in France these days, there is now a seller one eBay that has listed up to 25 ‘Gaillard” pans and claims to have over 50 of them in stock… and they all have the mark of the devil 😔

  29. Genuine Paris Gaillard copper pans are a rare find in France these days, there is now a seller on eBay- treasures- fro france that has listed up to 25 ‘Gaillard” pans and claims to have over 50 of them in stock… and they all have the mark of the devil 😔

  30. Hi guys, I’ve just found you! Wondering if I could please share a J. GAILLARD PARIS stamp in an oval to check its authenticity? I am *brand new* to the world of copper. Just bought a small gratin pan on Etsy from a seller who has a lot of Gaillard pans. Many thanks, Jodie

    1. Hey Jodie! The Gaillard field guide has photos of all the stamps I’ve been able to find, as well as my best estimate of when the stamps were in use. But I’m happy to take a look at the stamp as well — I’ll send you an email.

  31. Thank you so much for your replies! I did have a look at the other stamps and superimposed a photo of mine over the top – they are exactly the same! I’m very excited. Thank you again for this wonderful website, it’s an invaluable resource.

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