With the resurgence of Scandinavian Modern design’s popularity comes irresponsible and disingenuous folks who are selling fakes, knock-offs, and similar items as the real deal.  We’ve wanted to write this post for a long time, but we’ve always stopped short.  It’s not our job to be the vintage police, but it’s really starting to bug us…so here we go.

We’ve noticed many, MANY sellers trying to pass off 1970s Japanese stoneware as Lisa Larson and Stig Lindberg.  Not only is this really not cool, but it does a disservice to both Scandinavian and Japanese designs and designers.  At first, we were going to post a how-to guide to distinguishing real v. fake, but honestly it’s very easy to tell, with only a tiny bit of research, which is which.

The ‘boy on the horse’ is the most egregious misattribution we’ve found.  It’s gotten so bad that MANY sellers are selling this piece as Lisa Larson and it’s just not her work.  It’s nowhere in the Lisa Larson books (we have them…it’s not there), plus there are examples of the same piece with its original UCTCI sticker (which is a Japanese import company).

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We’ll revisit this issue in more detail later — once you’ve seen Lisa Larson’s work for Gustavsberg in person, it’s easy to tell the difference between Japanese stoneware and the real thing!