My mom received this as a gift in the early 90s (I think), and never used it. She gave it to me in the late 90s, and I have never used it. I was looking to sell it, but in my research, came across some information that concerns me that the purse is a knock-off.
It does have the oval leather duck logo sewn on the outside, and a leather Dooney & Bourke tag on the inside, as you can see. The hardware is all brass, and the trim is the classic British tan color.
However, I cannot find any sign of the sewn-in red, white, and blue label that all Dooney & Bourke items supposedly have.
I bought many D&B bags over the years, starting in 1983 or so. The bags way back then didn’t have serial numbers or special sewn-in fabric tags. I don’t know what year they added the fabric tag, but I do know for a fact that not having the tag doesn’t automatically mean the bag is fake.
The fakes don’t have the same quality feel and heft from all the brass, and the leather feels different. It’s hard to explain, but if you has a fake on in one hand and a real one in the other, you would easily be able to tell from the feel and the weight.
Thank you for responding. I am not a purse girl, so I’ve never bought D&B. But from the little that I know of them, this feels like a quality bag.
And now that I think about it, I do think it’s possible that my mother received it in the 80s rather than the 90s.
Would you recommend I take it somewhere to have it looked at to determine authenticity? If so, where?
I just have a feeling that if it is real, the fact that it’s never been used and has been stored in dark closets for decades and is vintage means I could get more for it than if it’s a knock-off.
I have no idea about where to go for authentication. About 10 years ago I was in a money crunch and took a batch of bags to a upscale vintage resale shop. The “expert” there declared my older D&B bags were knock-offs because they didn’t have the blue & red tag and some weren’t lined and said something along the lines of “they’re pretty good knock-offs so I’ll give you $5 each for them”. Yeah, right. They weren’t knock-offs. I had purchased them at the D&B counter at Macy’s 34th St in NYC when Macy’s first started carrying their line, and I still had my original receipts with the price tags stapled to them. I had to try a few other shops before I found someone who really knew what they were looking at. I knew she knew her stuff when she realized one strap was a replacement that I bought from the D&B catalog because my dog chewed the original one. I had forgotten all about it, but she knew it right away.
Maybe if you called the company and asked if they could recommend someone.
Go to the Purse Forum and post in the “Authenticate this Dooney and Burke” thread. (It’s the third sticky down from the top). You’ve never seen more dedicated purse experts than the ladies over there!
On real Dooney & Bourke bags, the trim and handles will be British tan leather. Often, fake Dooney & Bourke bags do not have matching trim and handles.
British tan trim adorns all Dooney and Bourke handbags. If the one you’re examining is any other color, you’re not looking at the real thing. The purse handles also are always British tan leather.
That’s part of the authentication problem. So many sites keep repeating that early D&B bags always BTL trim and handles, but they didn’t.
That’s why I recommend tPF. A lot of the online guides have wrong info—like, does the zipper say YKK? None of that is definitive.
I realized you may not want to join a forum just to authenticate. I belong to that forum and could always have you email me pics and get it authenticated for you.
Thanks for the recommendation! I will definitely check tPF out and post pictures once I have time to wade through that entire thread to make sure I’m not repeating a question.