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I'd take them back to the store. Maybe the owner was mistaken/duped himself. If you're a designer, I'm sure he'd rather have your repeat business than lose you over this.

(Meanwhile, I've been seeing these panels - or similar -- a lot and I don't really believe the owner was duped. But might as well give everyone the benefit of the doubt.)

I'd definitely let the client know right away. (What if they see something similar in someone else's home? Or they decide they want more info on their "antiques" and google and see how plentiful the things are?) Then take the panels back for a refund or price adjustment...take along the printout of the Viveterra product.

As a designer/business owner my suggestions are:

1. Approach the vendor and ask how they set their prices.

2. Will they let you return the pieces? If they want your continued business they should do this or at the very least give you a substantial discount.

3. You could charge your client only your price without a mark-up.

4. You could have a finisher add a different finish to them: glaze, or peeling/picked paint finish to make them different.

5. This is a huge problem with smaller retailers/showrooms who buy items in smaller quantities than the larger catalog companies.

Since you weren't trying to trick your clients they should definitely understand. You could always credit your clients the difference and "eat it" as a part of being a business owner. The key is to keep your client's happy and build their trust in you.

-Good Luck!

I'd be annoyed, too! Something similar happened to me; I purchased a custom Danskina rug from Luminaire only to find something incredibly similar at Home Carpet One for a fraction of the cost!! Since it was a custom order, I didn't even bother talking to Luminaire about it.

Maybe I'm just cynical, I don't think the manager at the Wow & Zen is going to be much help, unless you do a lot of business there. Although if it were me, I'd want to know if the panels are, indeed, exactly the same. There may be some slight difference that justifies the price difference.

Give them the benefit of the doubt. Start with the store, see what they will do, and then talk to the client. Absolutely agree its important to be open and transparent with both clients and vendors. Ask the store to provide record of their source. Obviously if you are a regular there, it in their interest to be transparent. Its also in their interest for you to post an explanation/resolution here where you've just raised the question to a good chunk of the design community that the store may be engaging in deceptive practices. As a thread way back discussed, it is in reacting to 'customer service issue's that stores often show their true colours. Hopefully, it will all work out...

Well, you say the owner "implied" they were one-of-a-kind. That was your interpretation of what he said, correct? Maybe his only intention was to express that they are hand-made, and therefore each was unique.
I would look carefully at what the owner ACTUALLY said to determine if there was any falsehood.
Additionally, if there was no deceptive advertising and the price was clearly stated for the piece, then you voluntarily made the purchase and the onus is on you, the designer, for choosing the item and paying the price. Forgive me, but if your goal is to get your clients great pieces at good prices, then you have to comparison shop before making the purchase-not blame the retailer when you find the piece cheaper somewhere else.

Hello Mindy.

I went through a similar situation. We were eyeing the vivaterra reclaimed wood coffee tables online and then saw them in a store in DC. The store was selling the tables at the white glove delivery price, which is much moire expensive than the regular delivery.

I am not sure how it worked out though. Maybe they had a special deal with Vivaterra and got the tables at a discount. My understanding was that they place the order online for the client without mentioning the vivaterra name.

I hope this helps.

If it was me, and I paid a lot of money for something to be "unique", I wouldn't really want to know that it wasn't. Especially if I have enough money to buy two unique somethings. Essentially, I'd rather just keep on thinking they are unique. After all, ignorance is bliss.

Forgive me but I've been to Wow & Zen and it didn't inspire my trust...and just because it's in a Bucktown/Wicker Park/Lincoln Park etc... gallery, boutique or shop doesn't make it any more authentic. After living in Asia for almost 5 years I can say this: Take any "antique" Asian home or art purchase here in the USA with a grain of salt....unless you're buying it from someone you know and trust or who can show you some provenance...in which case I hope you're not buying a stolen artifact! Pieces like this "antique" panel are being hand carved by the thousands on a weekly basis. I hate to say this but technically the owner was correct in their description...the panels were "hand carved" (by a village of artisans mass producing "antiques") and in implying that they "were a one of a kind" (they are because they are not machine made) and maybe, just maybe they were "antique" (or at least the source hardwood may have been) but it seems that someone was being "truthy".

If the panels in question are hand-carved, then yes, technically, you could say they're one-of-a kind, in the same way that fingerprints are one-of-a-kind. Of course, without close examination, my fingerprints don't look much different than yours. The owner probably was probably using this narrow definition of 'one-of-a-kind', but your clients may have interpreted it to mean more than he did.

The owner, however--whatever his pitch to your clients might have been--knew when he bought these panels that they are hardly unique, and he allowed for a healthy profit, which is perfectly understandable. That's why he's in business--to make money. But in pricing these as he did, he also may have eliminated your clients as future customers. This may or may not matter to him. At any rate, you might want to contact him, explain--tactfully--that you know what's what and see if he can make an adjustment. If he's willing to do so, then your clients have nothing to complain about and they've learned a valuable lesson besides: shop in haste, repent at leisure. If the guy's not willing to do that, don't go back.

What I wouldn't do--if you haven't already done so, and your clients aren't already aware of the wide price variation--is bring up the matter at all with them, and here's why: while it's the shop owners job to charge as much as he possibly can, and it's the clients job to spend as little as possible, when taking clients on a shopping safari, it's the designer's job to be familiar with the lay of the land, to be able to distinguish friendly natives from hostile ones, and, most important, to keep his charges from falling into a trap--that of taking common but attractive species for rare exotics. In other words, your clients may not have realized that what they were looking at was not what it apeared to be, but you should have known, and been able to steer them in another direction. Sound like you probably should have studied the terrain a little better before you started out. Like they said in Boy Scouts: Be Prepared. Next time.

Fake antique furniture is a large and thriving industry, especially in Asia today. I've been to many of these markets in China, for example. I don't think that American buyers necessarily realize that they are buying mass-produced products meant to pass as antique... although they may realize it but choose to look the other way.

What to do about it depends on your relationship with the owner and on your assessment of whether the item was being presented as "antique" or merely one of a kind. Since it's hand carved and probably they vary from piece to piece, it could indeed qualify as one of a kind by the shop owner's definition. If you're a designer, i would definitely ask whether they were supposed to be antique, and then let the owner know that you'd seen very similar panels elsewhere, in the friendliest manner possible, without making any accusation. His reaction will tell you quite a lot.

I think Patrickinchicago said it best! Things like this are all very 'truthy'. For the sake of your relationship with your client I might consider offering a discount or a partial refund to bring the panel(s) more in line with the mass market. As a designer you know we lie and die by referral. If you're great, they'll tell their friends....if you're terrible they'll tell everyone!

toomuchstuff is right, there are sooo many asian "antique" stores, I would definitely be skeptical. Especially since Z Gallerie also sells two items nearly identical, made out of the same material and hand carved and at a price much lower than Vive Terra:

http://www.zgallerie.com/pc-5901-25-small-sanctuary-panel.aspx
http://www.zgallerie.com/pc-5555-65-sanctuary-panel.aspx

I imagine they both get them from the same vendor

Patrickinchicago speaks the truth.

Philosophical question: Why should one care about "antiquity" or "uniqueness" in this context? It's demonstrably hard to prove, i.e., hard for the buyer/viewer/user to detect, so why should you pay extra for it in the first place?

I mean, you get a 10 MP camera if you want 10 MP images, and you can tell when you print them out. You might get a car with 43 MPG because you can tell how often you have pay when you buy gas. You might buy an old bureau because it's unusually embellished or better-constructed than a similarly-priced new desk. But if the only issues are intangibles like "uniqueness" or "antiquity", shouldn't one expect that they'll need to do some legwork to back up these hard-to-prove claims?

Mindy- I'd love to hear how you move forward on this, and what outcome you achieve, so if you are able to please post a follow-up in the comments.

Those panels are soooo NOT antiques. A friend of mine owns a furniture store and imports those panels along with similar looking ones with a Buddha head on them from Indonesia by the dozens. I would take it back.

I TOTALLY agree with magnaverde's comments.

One other "thing"..a while back- The Wall Street Journal had a very interesting piece on the "antique" furniture market in China- from, shady "scouts" in the hinterlands- trying to persuade Blind Grandmothers to part w/heirlooms> and substituting new ones in her home when the Grandma was out - to all of the factories in the south of China- that have amazing skills at creating "Old" new antiques- from burying wood in Cow Dung- to mixing rust water and staining wood, etc....

That is why - venerable institutions like Golden Triangle, Pagoda Red and Primitives in Chicago have the amazing inventory that they do. You may pay more- but rest assured, you won't encounter this kind of issue from them.

"Pier One Imports" is NOT the same as an Antique Dealer.

Agree with pretty much everyone here.
Handmade? Probably.
Unique? Probably.
Antique? Probably not.

You only have ammunition against Wow & Zen on the "antique" claim.

Responding to my own comment... VivaTerra says:

"Using recycled rough-hewn teak planks from old dwellings and community buildings"...

So... I can see them arguing that it is made from antique wood.

They may have told you a collection of technically truthful things that you extrapolated to mean something different. If they value your business, and the panels are still in new condition, they'll hopefully let you return them.

I know the owners of this store - they are very nice people so I can't imagine they'd intentionally dupe someone. I lived in Asia and I have to say, I bought many pieces there that I thought I'd never see when I brought them home to the States...boy, was I wrong!

It seems like there are two claims that you are upset about here.

The first being the "one of a kind" claim. As previous posters have commented, the hand carving does technically make each panel "one of a kind." From the Viva Terra website: "Each piece is truly unique; variations in wood color and carving will occur." I could see that you understood that to mean that the design of panels themselves were unique, not just the minute variations in the hand carving. This is a misunderstanding and not something I would argue with the sellers. These types of panels are all one of a kind. That is the nature of hand carvings. The design itself really is readily available in stores across the country. Coincidentally, I just saw similar panels in a store in Baltimore called Eclectic Elements last week.

The more complicated issue is the question of whether or not the piece is “antique.” I would talk to the sellers and ask them where they procured the piece. See if they had any reason to make that particular claim. Just because the piece is similar to the Viva Terra panel, does not mean that it couldn’t also be an older, “antique” panel. If the sellers did get the piece from a distributor then they had no basis for the antique claim and you should be able to discuss returning the piece or dropping the price on that basis alone.

Patrickinchicago is totally right. If you've ever been to Bali or Cambodia or Vietnam, there are entire villages that hand carve these things by the thousand, along with stone buddha carvings and anything else along those lines. Believe me, I work on Hong Kong island's most famous 'antique street'. Gotta love those authentic Ming dynasty CD cabinets!

Thanks everyone for you comments. After this post a few weeks back, I did some further investigation work and determined that my clients piece is actually not IDENTICAL. Their piece is 4 panels instead of 3 and includes lotus flowers in the center along with the 4 sides of the circle. The wood is also unfinished and has a very weathered quality (possibly reclaimed from a true antique). I'm still very sketchy about it actually being an "antique", but I supposed it is an original piece.

I think calling it an original piece is all you need to do. Adds a nice touch!