cover of latest Canada’s History Magazine
Toronto. … with apologies to Karen Shopsowitz and her family. You couldn’t live here 60 years ago without hearing the jingle, “hotdog, it’s a Shopsy” or visit the city without buying one of those delicious hot dogs from her father’s delicatessen.
Karen spoke to the PHSC at the September 15, 2004 meeting recounting her father’s enthusiasm for home movies.
Any art item deemed rare, expensive, or famous is at risk of duplication. Paintings, cameras, photographs are typically copied and presented for sale.
For example, towards the closing of one of our shows, an old gentleman showed up and offered a dealer an old Leica with a brass nameplate across the back engraved with the name of an infamous Nazi officer who had died at the Nuremberg trials. The dealer bought the camera but I missed photographing it.
Calling the dealer later, he said the camera was a well preserved fake. The camera’s age, colour, engravings and serial number made the ownership plausible leading to his decision to buy. Once home, he carefully inspected his bargain only to discover a single glaring error: the name had a missing umlaut – just as bad as a spelling error in English! Nevertheless, the camera was in fine condition and he elected to keep it as an example of a fine fake.
The latest issue of Canada’s History magazine sparked this post. In notifying me of the magazine’s article on a famous military photograph that proved to be fake, George Dunbar writes, “Canadian photo historians will certainly be interested in this feature article, ‘Over the Top,’ in the latest issue of Canada’s History magazine (Oct/Nov 2023).
“This is a fascinating exposé of the creation of faked First World War photographs by Canadian officials and a British photographer.”.
