This might have been covered in another thread but I would still like some advice. Recently purchased a Squall Play Arts Dissidia figurine and although I Love the overall look, it just doesn't seem sturdy. For one it doesn't stand properly, his legs are always sliding out from under him. Also has trouble holding his gunblade. Also this morning when I wanted to position him properly his arm kept coming off and finally after trying to put it back the thing that connects it basically crumbled off...SQUALL HAS NO WAY to CONNECT HIS ARM now!
I paid about R800 bucks for it although you do get bootlegs that are expensive.

I am a bit new to buying figurines so it would be a shame if I was duped...

i feel your pain, apparently i bought a bootleg for R600
i didn't even know people made bootleg figures.
and i couldn't tell the difference for the life of me
haven't bought a figure since

Well, it definitely depends where you bought it from. AWX only sells and trades 100% genuine figures.

But your first clue is always the box. Some of them are obviously fake but nowadays the fakers are using boxes so similar to the real thing it's quite easy to get fooled. Here are some tips I found on ebay which may be helpful:

*Poor Paint quality
*Poor sculpt & craftsmanship
*Colors that differ from original product
*Box colors and print quality that differ
*Offical seals, and stickers missing
*Prices that are too good to be true (sometimes this can be a factor, sometimes not)
*Figure completely sold out in Japan, yet all over eBay!

you stop looking at chinatown or chinese owned stores... not being racist, but that's the obvious answer.

and only buy from trustworthy places, like large japanese online stores which I can't name on this site and AWX

Firstly like Snow mentioned the box is the easiest to tell. The original figures boxes generally have a hologram sticker on to show it authenticity.

Get to know the figures you are interested in beforehand and before purchasing look for quality in craftsmanship and colors of the figures.

There is a store in a shopping center in Northcliff which sells bootleg figures, DON'T buy from them ever.

I have also fallen victim to pirate figures that was purchased years ago from a so called reputable supplier in SA which is not AWX.
Since then I've only imported and bought from AWX.

THIS might prove useful.

I would also advise avoid buying figures at RAGE. The last time I was there, there was a shop blatantly selling cheap rip-offs. Snow is pretty spot on with what to look out for, as is Nucleous. I knew they were fake immediately, because the box art was different to what I had seen, the face was off, and it was WAY too cheap. The figure was worth over R1000, but they were selling it for R350. It's kinda obvious then. It's the usual, "If it looks and sounds too good...", argument.

I know this topic is kind of old, but if you are still having problems with bootleg figures, then I recommend checking out this website. It's a figure database and has pretty much every figure up on there, and also states whether a specific figure has a remade bootleg/counterfeit figure or not (and sometimes has photos of what the bootleg version looks like as well), but otherwise despite that, I also recommend avoiding figures at RAGE. With bootlegs you will also notice that the box looks very damaged most the time.

The best indicator of a cheap knockoff

buy it off "River in South America" their favourite response is "we are not the supplier merely an agent" doesn't make you any less guilty for the crime

BlazenTech said ...

The best indicator of a cheap knockoff

Well the thing is that bootleg creators most the time uses the same exact box packaging of the original figure, so you wouldn't be able to tell the difference straight away, other than the fact that the box looks very damaged, but otherwise my point is that it won't look as if it was obviously made in China and such.

when it looks like this

Here are some other examples

Madoka



Sarugaki Hiyori



Hatsune Miku



Box. It isn't as noticeable as you can see, but if you look closely, you can see some differences.



Recently I saw stores in Cresta and Melrose Arch selling bootleg figures. I believe it's the same group that is selling figures at RAGE, and to make it even worse, they are selling bootleg figures for like R600 when you can get the same exact bootlegs off ebay for like R100. They are doing this since so many people don't actually know about bootleg figures. Best is to just find websites that sell the original or to just buy from AWX if they have any.

meau94 said ...




Recently I saw stores in Cresta and Melrose Arch selling bootleg figures..

I know were not supposed to talk[censored] about other stores or whatever, but these places would'int happen to be Gadget-Time? I see these stores all over the Cape, selling really bad quality anime merchandise...

One of them was selling an Raditz (from DBZ) figurine that was only half-painted...

That's why in an earlier post I brought up the "Made in China" sticker, cause a lot of their merchandise have this big white "Made in china" sticker plasted on their boxes...and I don't recall seeing those on any of my official Play Arts Kai figurine's boxes, or my DBZ figurines....

BlazenTech said ...

meau94 said ...




Recently I saw stores in Cresta and Melrose Arch selling bootleg figures..

I know were not supposed to talk[censored] about other stores or whatever, but these places would'int happen to be Gadget-Time? I see these stores all over the Cape, selling really bad quality anime merchandise...

One of them was selling an Raditz (from DBZ) figurine that was only half-painted...

That's why in an earlier post I brought up the "Made in China" sticker, cause a lot of their merchandise have this big white "Made in china" sticker plasted on their boxes...and I don't recall seeing those on any of my official Play Arts Kai figurine's boxes, or my DBZ figurines....

Well I don't think it's called Gadget-Time, but otherwise their figurines are very low quality. I once bought a Hatsune Miku figure from them at ICON because I couldn't tell it was a bootleg figure since the box design looked nearly exactly the same as the original. It however never had a "made in china" sticker, but when I took the figure out of the box, and tried to put the figure on it's base, it would refuse to stay standing, and also the figure seemed really poorly painted which I could only tell after taking the figure out of the box. I then went on MyFigureCollection and compared it to the photos of the bootleg and original version, and it looked a lot more like the bootleg. Despite me paying so much for the figure, I just threw it away since it didn't look nice next to my other figures ;_;

meau94 said ...

BlazenTech said ...

meau94 said ...




Recently I saw stores in Cresta and Melrose Arch selling bootleg figures..

I know were not supposed to talk[censored] about other stores or whatever, but these places would'int happen to be Gadget-Time? I see these stores all over the Cape, selling really bad quality anime merchandise...

One of them was selling an Raditz (from DBZ) figurine that was only half-painted...

That's why in an earlier post I brought up the "Made in China" sticker, cause a lot of their merchandise have this big white "Made in china" sticker plasted on their boxes...and I don't recall seeing those on any of my official Play Arts Kai figurine's boxes, or my DBZ figurines....

Well I don't think it's called Gadget-Time, but otherwise their figurines are very low quality. I once bought a Hatsune Miku figure from them at ICON because I couldn't tell it was a bootleg figure since the box design looked nearly exactly the same as the original. It however never had a "made in china" sticker, but when I took the figure out of the box, and tried to put the figure on it's base, it would refuse to stay standing, and also the figure seemed really poorly painted which I could only tell after taking the figure out of the box. I then went on MyFigureCollection and compared it to the photos of the bootleg and original version, and it looked a lot more like the bootleg. Despite me paying so much for the figure, I just threw it away since it didn't look nice next to my other figures ;_;

Yeah I have a guy that imports stuff for me from Japan, specifically legit figures from shonen anime (DBZ, Jojo's, bleach)...but he is moving to Norway now...yeah, when I see figurines in stores that also happen to sell those bootleg ps3 controllers, then I know what I'm dealing with...

BlazenTech said ...



Yeah I have a guy that imports stuff for me from Japan, specifically legit figures from shonen anime (DBZ, Jojo's, bleach)...but he is moving to Norway now...yeah, when I see figurines in stores that also happen to sell those bootleg ps3 controllers, then I know what I'm dealing with...

Sadly in South Africa it's basically impossible to find legit stores that sell figures. AWX does sell legit figures, but they never seem to have that many anime figures nowadays. I usually stick to buying figures online. Though usually importing them is like an extra R500

Hey Meau94 - I apologise for that but at the moment with the high shipping and customs charges on figures (especially for commercial / retailer imports) we had to put certain product ranges on hold. Once things normalize, I promise we will offer a wide range again at some of the best pricing in SA