[footfootfoot]

There is a great video by BBC called "the dinosaur that fooled the world" about a very good fake which came out of, are you sitting down?, China, of all places!

There is a brisk market in fossils and a lot of "marrying" of unrelated artifacts. Great video I downloaded from google of youtube.

The same is true of American "antique" furniture. As Michael Dunbar points out, if all the early American antiques available today were authentic, our forebears would have been working 24/7/365 making furniture.

I have a friend who started out doing legit restoration at a large shop. Initially they'd bring in a Queen Ann Highboy that was missing a drawer and they'd say to him: "Make the drawer." By the time he left ten yers later they'd hand him a drawer and say "Make the highboy."

I've seen so much of his stuff at Sotheby's and Christie's it isn't funny. Once, I accompanied him to Christies to deliver a piece and I stood around while the "experts" authenticated it. He merely said "Here is a piece that I found at auction, what's it worth?" They pored over it discussing this and that occasionally condescending to us "hicks" as if the subtleties of oak versus ash were lost on us. They were highly suspicious of a piece of oak claiming that that wood wasn't used in Philadelphia in March of 1775, so must have been added later. All the while my buddy was writhing in agony. We finally left and when we were several blocks away he exploded with "Those fucking idiots! It took all my will power not to say THE OAK IS THE ONLY AUTHENTIC PART ON THE PIECE." He bought some mangy crap at auction, did a "Stephen King a la Christine" restoration on it, adding just about everything except the undercarriage. The piece brought $21,000.

I think the same veracity can be expected of the label "organic" Unless you personally know the farmer who brought you your food...