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Exchange Examplar: the value of fakes in the real world

It's a huge find: an autograph from Henry Aaron himself, on a baseball. Except that the signature doesn't look like his, the kind of baseball came into use after Aaron retired, and so did the pen.

It would not be the first fake in history, and certainly not the last.

Lydia Pyne takes up some of the bigger examples of fakes in her book Genuine Fakes: How Phony Things Teach Us About Real Stuff.

Sure, there are forged paintings and "fossils" that are not old, but there are also ongoing fakes, like the banana flavor in candy.

We sink our teeth into that and more in this interview from 2019.

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The Jefferson Exchange is Jefferson Public Radio's daily news program focused on issues, people and events across Southern Oregon and Northern California. Angela Decker is the program's senior producer, Charlie Zimmermann is the assistant producer, and Geoffrey Riley hosts the show.