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Message:: [QUOTE="lizjewel, post: 2101703, member: 13874"][USER=36]@evelyb30[/USER] Right you are. In the 1990s a scandal brewed about phoney Czech jewelry, widely discussed on the c.j. boards back then. A man whose name I can't recall but it was short and possibly Germanic in origin [and likely fake too] started to sell a very large lot of stamped and cast c.j. with glass stones, rhinestones, on online auctions, incl. ze big one we all know. The pieces were only plated on the front, some had no pins to close the brooches, and they were unfinished, not polished smooth on the edges. The seller claimed it was all genuine Czech/Bohemian. The pieces were genuine alright, the seller having gotten hold of a big stash of them in some mothballed old c.j. factory in Czechoslovakia. Returns were almost 100% as c.j. collectors in the U.S., Europe, weren't impressed with unfinished jewelry no matter how genuine it was, a fact that greatly surprised the seller. He was obviously not wearing it so couldn't understand Western collectors' reluctance to appreciate his wares. Oh, I use Western to include the North American continent and non-former Soviet block countries in Europe, it's faster than making a list.[/QUOTE]