But, on June 1, the founder and publisher of Antique & Collectors Reproduction News (ACRN) will hang up his gloves.

In short, he wants to quit – to retire. He has been looking for a buyer, or at least a successor to his business, for more than a year. Failing that, he will close down the online database of fakes and reproductions the last day of May.

“People don’t realize it, but I’ve been working 60-80 hours a week to keep this thing going,” the 57-year-old Chervenka says. “I’ve worked 40 hours a week since I was 14 years old. Enough is enough … I want to take some time for myself.”

Until May 31, all functions of the database “will be fully operational to current subscribers,” Chervenka said.

Current subscribers with expiration dates beyond the closing period will be offered prorated refunds, he added.

The ARCN has been one of the longest running privately owned print publications within the antiques industry. The publication began in 1992 as a monthly printed newsletter. After more than 12 years of producing the black and white printed edition, the full color database was launched in December 2004.

Delving into areas rarely touched upon by collectors and even experts, Chervenka often was the first to reveal fraud in the antiques and collectibles field.

“I consider the $32 annual subscription to Antique & Collectors Reproduction News one of the best bargains in the collectible field,” wrote Harry Rinker in a 1997 Rinker on Collectibles column. “Mark Chervenka’s pioneering work in documenting reproductions (exact copies), copycats (stylistic copies), fantasy items and fakes is laudable. Mark is at his best when he plays detective.”

Chervenka has published more than 950 articles and more than 7,000 images, often meticulously illustrating genuine and fake items side by side for detailed explanations and comparisons.

The research was comprised of antiques and collectibles in nearly all price ranges and material, including cast iron toys to bronze statuary; Tiffany lamps to Depression glass.

The articles were often the first published technical evidence to document widespread frauds, including use of irradiation to produce colors in originally clear Lalique pieces, passing synthetic moissanite as diamonds, reproduction figural sterling match safes, French cameo glass imitations, forged acid marks on cut glass and questionable double-sulphide marbles.

Many of the photographs of scientific tests on antique images produced with electron microscopes, X-rays and ultraviolet light had never previously appeared in any antiques publication.

After laboratory results confirmed a fake, Chervenka also developed processes or simple field tests which allowed readers to detect reproductions on their own, often using common objects such as household chemicals, loupes, magnets or other inexpensive tools.

Most of the several thousand reproductions and fakes once owned by Chervenka have been dispersed, many of which are used for educational forums (several items used by AntiqueWeek in its popular Alert! Reproductions, Fakes and Fantasies, exhibit were purchased from Chervenka).

“I started liquidating a lot of that years ago,” he said. “A number of malls around the country have purchased those for their displays.”

But, Chevenka still retains the colossal library of more than 7,000 images of fakes, some of which have been very well produced. At the present, he said he had no plans for the library.

“That library is invaluable,” says Rinker. “The information he has provided is one of the most valuable reference tools in the trade … hopefully, he will take that information and put in on a disk. I hope he offers a complete run of his information … to lose that would be unthinkable.”

Chevenka’s research on reproductions and fakes was not only current, but also “backtracked” to some of those pieces that were produced prior to the 1990s. And, it was a credit to his work, that he documented much of the profusion of fakes and reproductions in the 1980s.

“Mark did a credible job,” Rinker says. “But there’s a double-edged sword here. For example, he wrote about all the bad Roseville that was coming into the country. Once that word got back to China, they fixed their problems … as a result, the reproductions began getting better and better.”

Chervenka supplemented his earnings from subscriptions by selling the black lights, loupes and other hardware that became more necessary once the fakes started getting better.

“I did well financially,” he says. “But, I’m looking forward to getting out, and probably doing something entirely different. I plan on getting out of the (antique and collectible) industry.”

Rinker, a veteran of the industry with 1,159 columns (and still counting) in his 23 years, understand Chervenka’s motives.

“I think that it’s really difficult to maintain the enthusiasm after so many years,” Rinker says. “He faced the same thing I do … writing a new column, trying to come up with something you haven’t already said, it’s a hell of a challenge.

Mark really took the lead on exposing these fakes … he was one of the cheerleaders for our industry, one of the leading educators. But, the sad thing is, who’s going to replace him. Where is the next generation – I just don’t see them there – and that’s a frightening aspect.”

Contact: (515) 270-4946

www.repronews.com

Eric C. Rodenberg