Between fakes and originals which has the more real market?

Sir Guy de Jonquieres, January 23 has never heard of anyone being killed by a fake handbag but still he might do well refraining from questioning the authenticity of the bag of someone coming out of a Gucci store so as to avoid getting seriously handbag-banged on his head. Tough clearly the originals and the fakes both need each other to survive it might very well be the original that has most to gain in this love-hate relation, as the only way a buyer could justify to himself paying their extraordinary prices is the extraordinary demand that exist for the fakes. Agreed, it is a quite confusing issue, not made easier by the fact that the fakes might represent the real markets while the originals seem to have more to do with fake markets.

Sent to FT, January 25, 2006