NEW YORK—The antiques industry has been rocked by scandal: John Hobbs, a London antiques dealer known for selling ultra-high-end furniture to American clients, has been accused by his restorer of selling fakes, according to the The New York Times.

Hobbs's restorer of 21 years, Dennis Buggins, claimed he did not know that Hobbs was misrepresenting his handiwork as authentic antiques. Detailed workshop records prove that many of the "reclad" pieces on Hobbs's Web site were made from inexpensive furniture parts at a fraction of the asking price. 

“It’s basically recladding,” Buggins said. Starting with an inexpensive item, “you use the best materials you can find and literally clad your new design onto that carcass.” Period wardrobes with beautifully aged patinas were the staple ingredient. “You take the doors and panels and thin them down to 2 or 3 millimeters to use as veneer,” he said. 

Hobbs insists he employed Buggins only for restoration and making authorized copies of antiques. “He made replicas occasionally, once every two years, where maybe there was a set of 10 chairs and a client wanted 14,” he says. “But it would be at the client’s request. They wouldn’t be fakes, they’d simply be replicas.”

Buggins's allegations and Hobbs's denials were first published in London's Sunday Times last month, and the financial dispute between the two men has become a cause for concern for international collectors and interior designers. In New York, some collectors have asked Christie's for appraisals of the authenticity of pieces they purchased from Hobbs, a spokeswoman for the auction house told the Times.

“Every rich person was buying things from John or Carlton or both,” said Thierry Millerand, a New York antiques dealer and former head of Sotheby's European furniture department, referring to Hobbs and his brother, New York antiques dealer Carlton Hobbs. The brothers previously worked together but had a falling out and dissolved their partnership in 1993.

John Hobbs's son, Rupert, said that the dispute between his father and Buggins began in September, when John Hobbs tried to intervene in a legal battle between his brother and Buggins. Records for the New York State Civil Supreme Court show that Buggins filed a lawsuit against Carlton Hobbs in October 2007, in a dispute over the ownership of several pieces of furniture. Buggins declined to comment on the lawsuit, as did Drew Biondo, a spokesman for Carlton Hobbs. However, Biondo denied that his boss was involved with Buggins in the creation or sale of fakes.