AUTHENTICATE This COACH

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#887
The bag is authentic. Very heavy and very durable. Has a nice wide strap.

I am headed out the door but read that feedback.


nutrihuney said:
hello resident coach experts, I need help authenticating the following...

Item: Leather Messenger Bag
Listing number: 230660108736
Seller: earlierthebetter
Link: ebay link
Comments: looks nice, but the buckle is throwing me off and concerned about the 97% fb on the seller

TIA - missa
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#890
Hyacinth said:
Originally Posted by Hyacinth If there's a pocket under the front flap it's called a Spectator Bag and is from the late 1980s. Looks ok to me.

Originally Posted by TurkeyFlyer Thank you so much, Hyacinth!
However, there is no pocket under the front flap. Just a long pocket on the back side. :confused1:


Ok, I'll keep looking a bit later
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Apparently Coach added the underflap pocket between 1987 and 1989 or their 1989 catalog has a mistake in the pocket description.. Yours would have to be from 1987 or 1988 judging by the Catalog, and it's definitely a Spectator Bag.
 
#892
Hyacinth said:
Apparently Coach added the underflap pocket between 1987 and 1989 or their 1989 catalog has a mistake in the pocket description.. Yours would have to be from 1987 or 1988 judging by the Catalog, and it's definitely a Spectator Bag.
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Thank you so much, Hyacinth! I've been wanting a nice bright red Coach bag, and now I've got one! I appreciate your expertise! :happydance:
 
#893
Hyacinth said:
Originally Posted by casadelosgatos Thank you, Hyacinth, for the taking a look at the pictures and replying. The attachment of the blue purse was helpful, too, but unfortunately I couldn't mag it enough to see some of the detail. I am attaching additional photos, which I am hoping will be of some help. I looked at the zipper and it is a YKK. The pull device at the end resembles another I have seen on a "how to spot a fake" website. I see your point about the color of the zipper, as well as the color of the thread. I saw one of the more recent posts also had a blue zipper with a brown leather.

What did you mean by a "pre-production" bag?

Thanks for your help!



A pre-production or Pilot Bag is a bag released in very limited numbers several months to a year or more before the full release of the bag is scheduled in order to gauge the buying public's reaction. I don't know what Coach did regarding pre-production bags that far back so it's impossible to say for sure if it might be one or if there would have been any kind of stamp or mark in the bag to show it was a pre-release bag.

As for the zipper, that "industrial-style" heavy-duty zipper was common in Coach's casual styles in the early to mid 1980s, but there are 2 problems with that kind of zipper appearing in your bag. One is that the Carriage Classics really weren't considered casual, they were more toward the dressy end of the scale and I can't see Coach using a casual type of zipper in that bag. The second and biggest problem is actually because of what you just mentioned about the zipper being YKK, since the zippers in that industrial style were, as far as I know, usually made by Talon, NOT YKK. Coach didn't start using YKK zippers until they started expanding production in the late 80s and early 90s, and I don't remember seeing that style of zipper with a YKK logo.

So that actually tilts the scale a bit more toward the bag being counterfeit.

And I hope that clarifies why those "authenticity guides" are so dangerous - not just because their information is usually totally wrong, but because authenticating a bag invovles SO much more than just looking at a zipper or seeing if the numbers in the serial are lined up straight! There are dozens of different things to analyze and if someone isn't familiar with that EXACT bag or family and also with Coach's designs and production methods during the time period the bag was supposedly made, they CAN'T make an educated authentication. There are no simple Rules and it requires an LOT of experience and actual research to be able to authenticate some of the trickier bags - and spot the fakes.
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Hyacinth, I guess I should just be happy that no one declared it a fake right off that bat. Even by you, who clearly has a great deal of experience in this topic. I've seen that done on other prior posts. :smile1:

I guess I should be happy with the idea that it's either authentic or a really good fake made out of excellent leather. The leather is of good quality, is thick, and reminds me of a new baseball glove.

Do you think there is any utility in bringing it to a Coach store? There is an outlet store within a reasonable drive. Would they be able to do anything with number on the creed, or given the change in serial vs registration number phenomenon, they wouldn't be able to provide any useful information. Would they be able to look at it and tell if it was real, or would they be working with the same handicaps if they don't know all the details of which zipper went with which style during which year....

By the way, the zipper pull was meant to be a sign of an original, not a fake. The point that was being made is that the end ring doesn't spin because of the way it was made.

Thanks for your time, again.
 
#895
Originally Posted by Hyacinth Can you post the measurements of the bag please? Thanks.

sugarysoul said:
11.5 inches across (side to side) and 7 inches for height. Do you need the measurements for the strap too?
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No thanks, just the measurements of the bag itself are enough.
It's called a Convertible Clutch style number 9635 and is one of the oldest Coach designs, it could have been made any time between the mid-1970s through about 1987. Definitely genuine :smile1:
 
#896
casadelosgatos said:
Hyacinth, I guess I should just be happy that no one declared it a fake right off that bat. Even by you, who clearly has a great deal of experience in this topic. I've seen that done on other prior posts. :smile1:

I guess I should be happy with the idea that it's either authentic or a really good fake made out of excellent leather. The leather is of good quality, is thick, and reminds me of a new baseball glove.

Do you think there is any utility in bringing it to a Coach store? There is an outlet store within a reasonable drive. Would they be able to do anything with number on the creed, or given the change in serial vs registration number phenomenon, they wouldn't be able to provide any useful information. Would they be able to look at it and tell if it was real, or would they be working with the same handicaps if they don't know all the details of which zipper went with which style during which year....

By the way, the zipper pull was meant to be a sign of an original, not a fake. The point that was being made is that the end ring doesn't spin because of the way it was made.

Thanks for your time, again.
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Unfortunately NO. Coach employees have NO experience in telling real from fake, and even less with bags that are more than a year old. In fact they are the last resource I would ever recommend for authentication, except for suggesting that whatever they tell you, the exact opposite is probably the truth. Sorry to be so negative, but we've seen that situation come up a hundred times, and 98 of the times the employee has been completely wrong. The outlet store employees are even LESS experienced and half of them weren't even born when that bag was supposedly made.

There's a big difference between "knowing" something because you sell it and knowing it because you study, analyze and discuss it 10 or 12 hours a day with other experts. The ONLY source employees have is a very limited computer system that only lists the style numbers of the bags made in about the last 10 years - and nowhere near all of those either.

In fact, Coach's legal "experts" are just as clueless. (BTW, I checked the bag when photos were still available online and it's completely genuine):
http://www.newsvine.com/_news/2011/02/09/6020116-coach-says-its-not-overzealous-in-sales-crackdown

In fact right now on Ebay's Shoes & Purses forum there's a post about a poster gravelrd825 who claims to be a former Coach employee who not only repeatedly contacted and harrassed the seller of a GENUINE bag, but who even reported it to Ebay as fake. The post will probably get gutted or removed but here's the link. Remember some posts may already be missing:
http://forums.ebay.com/db2/topic/Shoes-Purses-And/My-Bag-Is/5200016245
 
#897
Hyacinth said:
Unfortunately NO. Coach employees have NO experience in telling real from fake, and even less with bags that are more than a year old. In fact they are the last resource I would ever recommend for authentication, except for suggesting that whatever they tell you, the exact opposite is probably the truth. Sorry to be so negative, but we've seen that situation come up a hundred times, and 98 of the times the employee has been completely wrong. The outlet store employees are even LESS experienced and half of them weren't even born when that bag was supposedly made.

There's a big difference between "knowing" something because you sell it and knowing it because you study, analyze and discuss it 10 or 12 hours a day with other experts. The ONLY source employees have is a very limited computer system that only lists the style numbers of the bags made in about the last 10 years - and nowhere near all of those either.

In fact, Coach's legal "experts" are just as clueless. (BTW, I checked the bag when photos were still available online and it's completely genuine):
http://www.newsvine.com/_news/2011/02/09/6020116-coach-says-its-not-overzealous-in-sales-crackdown

In fact right now on Ebay's Shoes & Purses forum there's a post about a poster gravelrd825 who claims to be a former Coach employee who not only repeatedly contacted and harrassed the seller of a GENUINE bag, but who even reported it to Ebay as fake. The post will probably get gutted or removed but here's the link. Remember some posts may already be missing:
http://forums.ebay.com/db2/topic/Shoes-Purses-And/My-Bag-Is/5200016245
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Thanks Hyacinth for your authentication, unfortunately it was more than I wanted to spend.

In regards to the bold portion of your post, I tend to agree. I have been employed by Coach for well over a year now, and have only been "into" Coach for about 5 years, and while I can spot obvious fakes, the more intricate and determined ones I will not make any concrete statements about. Why? Because I DON'T know. I don't have the experience, intimate knowledge or resources to know. I recommend the Authentication Ladies here because they have all the above, much more so than I do.
 
#898
Hyacinth said:
Originally Posted by Hyacinth Can you post the measurements of the bag please? Thanks.



No thanks, just the measurements of the bag itself are enough.
It's called a Convertible Clutch style number 9635 and is one of the oldest Coach designs, it could have been made any time between the mid-1970s through about 1987. Definitely genuine :smile1:
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OMG!!! Thank you sooo much!! :D
 
#899
Originally Posted by Hyacinth Apparently Coach added the underflap pocket between 1987 and 1989 or their 1989 catalog has a mistake in the pocket description.. Yours would have to be from 1987 or 1988 judging by the Catalog, and it's definitely a Spectator Bag.


TurkeyFlyer said:
Thank you so much, Hyacinth! I've been wanting a nice bright red Coach bag, and now I've got one! I appreciate your expertise! :happydance:
Click to expand...

You're welcome :smile1:

Watch out for those red Coaches, though, they can be habit-forming. :D
 
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