How to identify this signed "Lindstrand Kosta" vase as a fake

I list this to help people avoid buying fakes (or at least know when they've been had, as we were in this case.)  We were excited to buy this tall, heavy Vicke Lindstrand vase - the simple but beautiful design in blue with a very pale blue layer around the dark blue - from an internet seller. We hadn't been able to obtain a 10 inch version of this vase before (though we have since, see Set of three Lindstrand blue sommerso vases). 

However, this one turned out to be a copy - well-made and beautiful, but simply not the real thing.

There are four problems with it.  First, and most obviously, although the blue looks pretty genuine in the photos, if you look closely you'll see it's slightly brighter and more purple than the blue of the smaller vases. In real life it's very obviously wrong.  It's a modern shade, which you just didn't see in the 1950s.

Getting the right shade of glass is a particular problem for those wishing to create genuine-looking fakes. The exact brand and colour the manufacturers bought from their suppliers 50 years ago is very unlikely to be available. Whatever the manufacturers mixed themselves is unlikely to be easy to emulate exactly.

Second, the mix of glass that they've used is not the right quality. It's not as clear, with a slightly "icy" look that we can't capture in a photo.

Third, the signature is in the wrong place. The base is ground and polished, and the pontil mark, where the metal pontil iron was attached while it was being made, has been ground smooth and concave, which is usually a sign of quality workmanship. However, they've put the fake signature on the flat part of the base, where it will be scratched by wear over the years, rather than on the concave part of the base where the glassmakers would usually put it.

Fourth, the signature itself is a too deep and rough, and the numbers are hard to read. Certainly, once it's held up against a genuine signature (see http://www.modernistglass.com/glasspieces/view/2797), you should start to smell a rat.

And fifth, the shape is not quite right.  Again, compare with the real thing at http://www.modernistglass.com/glasspieces/view/2797.

We've used sandpaper to obscure the signature so that it can't be inadvertantly passed off as the real thing in future, and given it to my secretary to give to a friend who will love it. And it is a beautiful piece. Shame it's not real. :-(

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